


Addressed to the Same

by shetlandowl



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Espionage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetlandowl/pseuds/shetlandowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite recent trauma, Jim drags his feet out of self-imposed early retirement to answer Uhura's call to find a shadow in recent history, codename Keats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> There are scores of brilliant fic in this fandom by authors who develop spot-on characterization and voices, and regretfully this is not one of them. I have not written fic (Jim/Bones or otherwise) to wrangle dialogue like such champions. Still, this is how the story came to me, and I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> (Is there a need to say I'm not getting paid for this? Surely that's implicitly understood by now.)
> 
> Last but not least, thank you [nature_aly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nature_aly) for all your time, support, suggestions, and love, love, love!

Jim doesn't think he's being kidnapped. The driver is humming an old Kinks classic and leisurely maneuvering the Rolls-Royce Wraith through traffic. Nobody gets kidnapped in a Rolls-Royce, let alone a washed-up has-been dragging his feet out of hibernation. The Agency had even taken the extra measure of providing him with a Walther PPK for protection before his official reinstatement. It wasn't his favorite, but he recognized Uhura's unspoken sentiment in the legendary pistol. 

"Here we are," the driver sing-songs, pulling up to the curb and stepping out of the car to open Jim's door. With minor hesitation, Jim steps out of the car and shoulders his duffle, squinting into the bright sunshine. 

"Simplethings," the driver leans in and whispers, gesturing down 3rd Street with a little shake of his head. "The Salted Caramel is to die for." 

Jim shields his eyes and locates the cafe easily, but when he turns back for more information the car was already gliding back into traffic. Before he can reconsider, he walks to Simplethings, taking comfort in the Walther tucked safely under his jacket. 

Inside the little cafe, flavor wafts through the air in ripples of sugar, butter, coffee, and cinnamon. A pleasant buzz of energy and companionable chatter completes the atmosphere, and as Jim takes inventory of every designer custom wear, handbag, and accessory, it occurs to him that backcountry Iowa is already in his distant past. 

Uhura flags him down, effortlessly bringing him out of his haze. Jim takes the only seat beside her, one foot protectively planted on his duffle under the table. Three slices of pie are already waiting on the table. 

"Who is joining us?" Jim asks casually enough, gaze fixed on the odd Mississippi Mud pie joining the two plates of Salted Caramel. 

If anyone could pick up the defensive anger weighing on Jim's words, it would be Uhura, but she only seems pleased with Jim's observation. 

"No-one," she answers truthfully, "I couldn't decide, so I got two."

Jim closes his eyes and smiles, relief manifesting as silent laughter. "Thank god," he smiles, "For a minute I thought it was your dad."

"He suffers enough stupid from the World Security Council already, he doesn't need to subject himself to you again," says Uhura, picking up a spoon to begin her Mississippi Mud pie. "How do you feel?"

"You got my evals, you know how I feel." Jim responds in monotone, cutting into his pie with a spoon to distract from his rising frustration. 

Uhura considers him in silence, then simply says, "You passed, Jim."

His expression reveals nothing, but the pause of his breath carries sufficient meaning. 

"You are underweight, out of practice; your psychologist suggested turning you back to a handler," she continues, "but like with everything else, you passed by the skin of your teeth."

"Your decision is final," says Jim, fingers wrapped tightly around his spoon. A minute ago he was second-guessing his decision to answer Uhura's call, and now a sudden and unsolicited hunger for active duty welled inside of him, suffusing his skin with color and a need to find the strength in the grip of his gun. 

"There is someone I need you to find, codename Keats," she begins, "Sulu will debrief you. You go to San Francisco tomorrow."

"You want me to find a would-be poetry aficionado in the veritable capital of hipsters?" Jim rolls his eyes, crossing his arms in frustration. "Does the phrase needle in a haystack mean anything to you?"

"I want you to find me a ghost," Uhura counters severely, her voice low and unyielding, "A career terrorist for hire, cruel and heartless and invisible. Keats has exclusive knowledge on an operation that I need access to. I need Keats brought in alive."

"Understood," Jim quietly responds, sobering up out of respect for the case, "My team?"

"I relieved Scott of his other duties, you will require his full attention. Johnson will join you on the ground."

"Bullshit," growls Jim, "After Spock? I'll put a bullet in him."

"You can't kill your partner, I--"

"--tell that to Spock, he's the one who--"

"--I can't allow you to pursue Keats without--"

"--because my last partner _didn't_ leave me to die--"

"--you are too vulnerable!" Uhura snaps suddenly, ending their increasingly heated attempts to speak over one another. It is a testament to LA's overpopulation of actors and writers that nobody was looking their way. 

"No partner, or no case," Jim says, leaving the decision to Uhura. "Give me Sulu and Scott, they are the only team I need."

"Fine," Uhura finally concedes, but as anger drains from her expression Jim can see the underlying concern in her eyes. "I will give you an analyst instead. He might keep you safe from base."

Jim nods once, silent. Uhura watches him a moment longer, visibly hesitating at a thought before reaching into her briefcase to produce a condensed copy of the Keats file.

"This is your lead," says Uhura, "until further assessment of the damage Spock instigated, you will also retain your primary codename. Captain." 

✠

Turning down on Church street to Jim's assigned address, Hikaru nearly strangles the wheel of the car as he pulls up to the curb. "Dude. Dude, you have parking space. Fucking _parking space_." Jim has the wherewithal to rub soothing circles on Hikaru's back, but neither of them seem to notice: Jim has been struggling to get a handle on the Keats file for the past three hours, and Sulu is momentarily stunned by flashbacks of the shanty hell-holes the Agency set them up with in the past. 

Sulu is the first to come back to the present, giving in to the urge to press two fingers to Kirk's neck in search of a pulse. "Earth to Captain Kirk. Your fucking palace awaits."

"There is no description of this guy in here," Jim complains, disregarding Hikaru's expletives and touching with practiced ease. He sighs again, just in case his frown didn't make his frustration abundantly clear, and tucks the file into his duffle. He heaves himself and his belongings out of the car only to nearly fall back inside when he sees the building. "Holy shit. This is it?"

"744 B Church Street, this is it," Sulu slings the laptop bag over his shoulder and comes around the car, and together the two men gleefully race up the stairs to the second floor. Sulu is first, but only because Uhura supplied him with the keys.

"Belgium," breathes Sulu as he opens the door. "Screw you, I'm taking it."

Jim bodily shoves him into the condo and follows him in. He can't deny Hikaru the impulse. Dumping his duffle and the Keats file on the chair by the door, he ventures in after Hikaru. He recognizes it as a refurbished Edwardian home, early 20s, but the sliding Japanese doors and boasting windows fill the rooms with natural light. The rooms are tastefully decorated, and it is just when Kirk starts to feel like he has walked into the glossy cover of a home decorating magazine that he realizes he has lost sight of Sulu. The physical response is immediate. Adrenaline takes over his body, a sense of dread that magnifies the sound of his pulse in his ears. With his fingers lingering on his holstered Walther, he strides out of the sitting room and through the hallways looking for Sulu. 

"You might want to sit down for this," Hikaru calls from the main bedroom. "Get in here Kirk, or I swear I'm fighting you for it!"

Dropping his hand and clearing his throat as he stepped into the room, Jim attempts to shed every trace of tension on his face with a grin. "I'm sure Uhura set you up, too," he begins to say, but as his eyes settle on the personal armory Hikaru has discovered behind the wall, Jim's words falter. "Son of a bitch."

Together they enter the militarized alcove, reverently making their way through firearms, explosives, surveillance equipment, variations of Kevlar protective gear, and miniature grenades designed to stun, gas, and destroy. 

"You're the Kim Kardashian of R&D."

Jim laughs, drawn to a modified Sig Sauer on the wall display of hand guns. "I might have to retire Captain, but I'll go out on a limb here and say Uhura wouldn't call me Kim Kardashian."

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't try."

"That doesn't mean I won't try."

"She will bury you in paperwork," Sulu laughs. "You'll cry before the end."

"Man, I'm already crying," Jim deflates with a sigh as he was reminded of their current assignment. "That Keats file is a four-pound collection of the most unrelated and dissimilar operations allegedly committed by one man. I don't even know if it's a man! It could be a woman just as easily, because no-one has ever seen, heard, or lived to otherwise describe Keats. He's either incredibly good at hiding, or he's pulling Pike's old move."

"Red herring?" Sulu perks up, suddenly more interested in this conversation than in the crossbow he was holding. "So what you're saying is it could be Bradley James?"

Jim hangs his head, reminding himself not to rise to Sulu's baiting in a room stocked with tear gas. "We are not stalking that little English boy again."  
   
To Jim's relief and Hikaru's added frustration, there is a knock on the bedroom door that overwhelms the inevitable avalanche of denial. A young man with curly hair and a startled expression stands unannounced in the doorway, his hands rising in a gesture of innocence on either side of three bulging folders he has clutched to his chest. Dangling off one of his index fingers is a set of keys to the condo.  

Noticing that the keys and keyring match the ones Uhura had given him earlier, Sulu lowers his crossbow. Jim persists, his Sig Sauer trained on the intruder's head. 

"On your knees," Jim commands, stepping forward on instinct to put Sulu behind him. "Put the files on the floor and put your hands behind your head."

"Pavel Chekov, intelligence analyst. Administrative director Uhura sent me," the man says, clearing his throat and visibly uncomfortable. But when he complies with Jim's orders, he does so without hesitation or trembling. "Captain, my specialty is code breaking. The director has assigned me to help identify Keats." 

Without being told, Hikaru steps around Jim to pat Chekov down, frowning a little to himself as he came up with their Agency issue badge. He holds it up for Jim to see, but his attention is primarily on Pavel. "You're unarmed? Dude, he's practically an assassin."

" _I_ am intelligence analyst," Chekov repeats dryly, sitting back on his heels when Jim finally lowered his pistol. "It is not a necessity."

"You have information on Keats?" asks Jim, putting his gun aside and kneeling down to pick up the folders. Hikaru offers Pavel his hand and helps him back on his feet. 

"Not yet, Captain," Pavel sighs, audibly a little disappointed. "But I have not had much time with the data, sir."

The formality catches his attention, and Jim looks up from the classified papers in his hands. "It's Jim, Jim Kirk. This is Hikaru Sulu," Jim gestures with a nod, "he's my muscle."

"Extraction specialist," Hikaru growls. 

Chekov confirms with a nod, professionalism unwavering. "Where do we begin?"

✠

Two hours later, the men are spread across the sitting room in various positions, stumped. 

"Please tell me one of you got something," Jim sighs, dropping his file on the coffee table. He was not ready to admit defeat yet, but he needs coffee. 

"There's maybe fifty intelligible sentences in this whole file," Sulu sighs, flipping back and forth between the pages in his hands. "This puts him in Soviet Russia from 86 to 91, entering through Finland. But there is something about Romania in November 89? What is the PCR?"

Pavel lifts his head from the floor, resting his file on his chest momentarily. "In 1989? The Romanian Communist Party." 

"Hang on a minute," Jim interrupts, grabbing his file again and flipping back to a familiar page, "that can't be right, this puts Keats in Iraq 1990." 

"I think the man can be in two countries in one year, Jim," Hikaru smirks, disinterested in what Jim had to say, "My file is way cooler, the guy's burning up the USSR."

"In an Iraqi prison," Jim reiterates slowly, "March to May 1990. I can't read this name but I think that's Baghdad."

The other men look up immediately. "Is there a description of him?"

"If there is, it's in Arabic. It's useless until Uhura translates it," Jim begins to say, but Chekov snatches the file out of his hand. He flips the pages and quietly reads while the other two men observe and try not to act surprised. 

"No description," Chekov says carefully after several minutes, "but there was a fire. They declare him dead here."

Hikaru's face twitches. Pavel flips ahead a few pages, then back to where he had been, hoping to find better intel from the prison records. Jim scrubs his face with his hands. 

"So," Hikaru begins, attempting to construct a plausible theory that was not already owned by Gene Roddenberry or Michael Crichton. "If Keats died in 1990, who is the guy in the USSR 1991?"

"Is there anything?" Jim asks Chekov instead, not wanting to give in to Hikaru's line of thinking unless he had to, "Anything at all, his age? Is it a men's prison?"

"Iraq under Saddam Hussein was not that ..accountable? It could still be a woman. And nearly all prison records in Iraq were burned in 2002 after Saddam Hussein gave prisoners amnesty," Chekov explains without looking up from the papers, "this, this is a certificate of death addressed to English embassy."

"So it has to have something on there," Jim presses. "Does it say he's an English national?"

"But if he _died_ ," Hikaru tries to remind them, "guys, he's dead. Whether it's just a burned alias he disposed of or Keats actually died, he was still in Russia in 1991."

"Or the guy in Russia is a copycat and useless to us." 

" _Or_ , Keats is just a name that is passed on from one person to the next," Sulu presses further, "An apprenticeship or something."

"You can't seriously be suggesting that he is the Dread Pirate Roberts."

"It could still be a woman," Chekov reminds them, "Keats could be a woman, women are consistently considered less threatening and conspicuous, that can be why Keats has been so successful."

Sulu snorts, leaning back on the couch and letting the file drop beside him on the cushion. "Spoken like a man who hasn't met Uhura."

"Shh, not by name," Jim whispers, "she might feel a disturbance in the Force." 

"Administrative director Uhura is not a Jedi," Chekov counters faithfully, but even he is startled when Jim's phone jumps to life and announces that they are _now tuned into the motherfucking greatest_ before filling the room with Jay-Z's beats. 

"The most successful spy in French history," Chekov continues as Jim goes to answer Uhura's call, "was a man, a spy, pretending to be a woman married to a layman pretending to be a an undercover spy. Everywhere they went, people watched the decoy layman, while _she_  seduced men and got information. On first impression, women are not visible threats to men."

"Except, this was a guy," Hikaru supplies, not sure if he was confused or impressed yet.

"Yes, but the targets did not know this." Pavel shrugs, adding, "maybe even husband did not know? Homosexuality is not a modern phenomenon."

"…Captain?" Scotty's voice sounded strained with confusion. "Is this a bad time, sir?"

"Scotty!" Jim cheers, quickly switching the phone off speakerphone, "Sorry man, I thought it was Uhura, thought I'd show her the filthy, filthy mouth on her loyal ensign--you know what? Never mind, forget that. I need to thank you," which is about as far as Jim got before his energy flickered and died in a collision with the most horrifying thought he had ever had. "Hey Scotty? Why are you calling me from Uhura's phone?"

"Get your head outta the gutter, laddie," sighed Scotty, and Jim could hear his eyeroll beyond the fading horizon of horror that had been Scotty and Uhura on Biblical terms. "Just appropriated her frequency to call, didnae have time to leave you a message this time."

"Cause that's not playing with fire," Jim grins, taking his empty cup to the kitchen for a refill. He had to make a note somewhere to check into what ungodly hell Uhura would rain down on the quartermaster for this. "So what can I do for you, Scotty?"

"I take it you've seen the armory," says Scotty, "anything you or Mr. Sulu need me to send before I leave the East coast?"

"Unless you've got a functioning BFG hiding in your lab somewhere, I think you got us covered until you get here," Jim laughs, "That armory is badass man, you did an outstanding job. I might even install a swing to complete the whole _secret alcove of sin_ vibe you got going on."

"Kirk," Scotty downright snarls across the line, "Kirk those are prototypes: they are one of a kind. I made them with me bare hands, don't you dare!" 

With a big grin Jim disconnects the call and pockets his phone. Maybe now Scotty will think twice before hacking into his laptop again. 

✠

After hours of deliberation, caffeine, and jumping jacks, 4 AM finds Jim ousted by Hikaru on the official grounds of an empty refrigerator. He had already tramped up and down the same stretch of Guerrero street in heavy fog and rainfall, killing time and feigning productivity despite the fact that five minutes of work confirmed a depressing lack of subtle surveillance real estate. Having failed to thoroughly soak him vertically, the rain was now vindictively attempting a horizontal approach, and Jim huddles further into his field coat to shield his head.

Traces of Keats' affairs had been brought them to a Wash & Dry in San Francisco, and even Chekov was convinced by their data that it was the right place to begin. Jim wasn't particularly eager to stare at a laundromat for hours on end, but it hadn't occurred to him how difficult that could be. None of the surrounding businesses catered to extensive patronage; he would stick out like a sore thumb if he hung around all day, everyday. His best bet was the roof, and even then he was likely to lose Keats in the time it took to reach ground level. 

Jim was calculating the cost and benefit of taking the direct route between roof and pavement when a faint light shone through the rain and commanded his attention. _FALKO_ , read simple block letters on the window, and in smaller print beneath: _Bakery & Cafe_. 

He crossed the street quickly and hid behind the small column between the windows and the glass door. Cautiously he peeked over his shoulder into the bakery, but no matter how he stretched and turned he could not see a person. As the minutes ticked by, Jim grew bolder and more careless, and just when he had started to believe that _maybe_ this place was just getting robbed by stupid people who ran into the light switch on their way out, a man walked out behind the counter. Jim bounced back behind the column, rolling his eyes at himself. Even with a Creative Writing degree from Berkeley he couldn't make a rookie mistake look acceptable in a report. 

A few seconds passed before he tried to peek into the bakery again. The man was still there, and it was clear he had not spotted anything out of the ordinary: he was methodically moving around his workspace, cleaning intermittently and bringing out ingredients from different places, occasionally referring back to a chalkboard hanging on the back wall. There was a rhythm to the whole procession, a grace in the baker's movements that told Jim there must be music playing in the back - blues, by the looks of it. 

Tuning out of the abusive rain and wind, Jim stood behind the column and stared with the humility of a pervert with a badge. The man was tall, broad, and somewhere between his unruly hair and the way he kneaded the dough Jim momentarily have lost his sense of objectivity. Quickly, he shook his head and pressed back into the safety of the column. In looking directly ahead he was again reminded of their true target: the laundromat. 

He should go back to the condo. He should make note of the bakery's regular business hours, and fill Sulu and Chekov in on their new strategy. There was no place for Lips & Cute Hair in this equation. 

Armed with a logical, appropriate plan, Jim abandoned it and quickly rearranged himself to look as pathetic as possible. He stuffed his scarf and hat away in two inside pockets, got out of his jacket and threw it into the street where water was gathering along the curb, allowing it to marinate a few seconds before shrugging back into it. If he hadn't been wet enough already, the grimy water and debris dripped down his neck and soaked into his clothes. Shifting his weight to his left foot, he hopped carefully to the door and knocked on the glass. Once, twice, but it wasn't until he was practically banging on the door that the baker even noticed him. 

The man's eyes shot comically wide in surprise, and just when Jim thought he might clutch his heart and faint, the baker threw his hands up in defeat and came around the counter to open the door. 

With a tight, apologetic smile, Jim stepped back to let the man open the door, but he had no such luck. Instead, the baker pointed to the hours of operation clearly listed in matching green block letters on the front door. His message was clear: he was not open for another three hours. 

"No," said Jim, speaking loudly to be heard through the door, "Help?" Jim gestured to his right foot, looking for all the world like he had suffered a bad sprain. 

The baker had followed Jim's gesture and visibly sighed. Taking in Jim's drenched clothes and the horrible weather, he caved, dug some keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. He stepped aside silently to allow Jim to come in, but after locking the door behind them he walks off, leaving Jim alone by the door. 

Frowning, Jim hobbles in his attempt to turn and see where the Lips & Cute Hair had run off to. It didn't take the man long to return, two seats and a first-aid kit in tow. An ice pack dangles dangerously between his teeth. 

"Sit," he instructs, putting a chair down with more force than necessary. Confused, and inexplicably turned on by the man's aggressive hosting, Jim unevenly lowers himself into the chair without putting pressure on his right ankle. The man stations the second chair opposite Jim and, without pause for permission, pulls Jim's right foot into his lap to undress him from the ankle down. 

"Man, you're my hero, I was not going to make it much farther," Jim smiles, dilithium charm at maximum. "I don't know what I would have done if your light wasn't on." 

The baker looks up from his inspection, long-suffering and bored. Eventually he sighs, straightening up but firmly holding Jim's foot captive in his lap, thumb idling over his ankle. "What happened?"

"I parked my car in some street between Valencia and Guerrero," Jim starts, lying through his teeth without hesitation. "No damn clue where I left it, I got too caught up looking up for street signs that I missed the curb."

"No," answers the baker, speaking slowly in case Jim is particularly thick. 

Jim blinks, trying not to mirror the baker's frown. "No?"

"Don't pander to me, kid: your ankle is fine" the man growls so much as sighs, and Jim isn't entirely sure how a man can be so antagonized before the day has even started. On second thought, that might be a redundant question. 

"What do you want me to say?" Jim attempts exasperation, "I'm living in the street, sue me. It's a little late to start on an ark now."

The baker's lip twitches upward, the echo of a grin. "No," he drawls, speaking slowly still for Jim's benefit. "Too clean."

Jim's shoulders slump, and it's all he can do to contain his pout. "Man, come on. Fine," he grouses, leaning back casually in his chair in defeat, running a hand through his hair. "My roommate kicked me out about an hour ago to flirt with a coworker."

The baker's smirk grows into a grin, and he gives Jim's ankle a satisfied pat. "There. Was that so hard?"

"Yes. No?" Jim frowns, "When did culinary arts include lie detectors?"

"Call it a side effect of a lifetime in customer service," the baker offers, brushing Jim's foot off his lap finally and getting up. "If you're quiet, you may stay here until your roommate strikes out."

Jim snickers, standing up and helping him return the chairs as an excuse to follow him around. "That's a little unfair, don't you think? We're social creatures, conversation is our moral imperative." 

The baker turns to face Jim so quickly he almost walks right into him. "Kid, it's barely 4:30," the man growls, "The sun hasn't even thought of coming up yet. Shut up, or I'll grind your bones down and cut it into the flour."

Jim blinks owlishly, then suddenly he laughs again, buzzing with radiating energy. "Scones & Bones!" he suddenly announces, laughing, "Tell me that's not an awesome daily special!"


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoever said surveillance work was miserable must have been lactose intolerant.

"Who the fuck is Bones?" Hikaru finally yells, needing to get a word into Jim's epic monologue about last night's break-through. "What does he have to do with Keats?"

"Everything," Jim grins, taking a big bite of his apple to emphasize his point. "He's my cover - owns the bakery right across the street, it couldn't be better: the windows are huge, no blind spots. And let me tell you, that ass won't quit."

Hikaru draws a hand over his face, muffling a groan and massaging his eyes as if to clear the image from his retinas. 

"No, you're right," Jim acknowledges Sulu's frustration, "Ass is technically still pending investigation."

Sulu throws the first thing he can get his hands on at him, and Jim only manages to duck the spatula because he's laughing too hard to stand up straight. 

"Sulu!" he cries, wiping at the few tears on his cheeks, "Don't hate on me cause you're experiencing a dry spell!"

"Dude, shut up, it's _not_ a dry spell," Sulu snaps back, hand drifting dangerously close to the pan itself. "Some of us don't get use sex strategically."

"It's no more than flirting, Hikaru," Jim soothes, palms up and out in a placating way. Sulu's aim is too good to tempt. "He's just my cover, flirting with him will be my excuse for lingering there so long."

It works; Sulu lowers his hands again, but he still doesn't look quite as impressed as Jim had originally anticipated. "So long as we're clear," he says slowly. Jim doesn't insult him with feigned confusion. 

✠

When the doors open the next morning at 7 AM sharp, Jim lets the four other patrons in ahead of him to preen under Bones's scowl. 

"Damnit, kid," he growls, busying himself with putting up the awning, "Have I given you any indication at all that I care?" 

Jim's grin grows, too bright and awake for this time of day. He holds up a satchel that has been beaten to within an inch of its life by way of explanation. "Just here to get some work done, Bones," Jim confesses easily, "You wouldn't deny a writer his natural habitat, would you?"

"Bones?" Bones frowns, so unimpressed Jim could have smelled it. "What the hell is _Bones_?"

"You, of course," smiles Jim, "Your threat made quite an impression - which, really, if you think about it, that is the point of a threat in the first place."

"So you're calling me _Bones_?" Bones cuts him off, incredulous. "Do I look like a butcher from the 1950's to you, kid?" 

"It's either that or Lips & Cute Hair," offers Jim, shrugging innocently. But when Jim opens his mouth to ask the obvious, Bones abandons him to take care of his growing number of customers before someone takes interest in their conversation. 

Choosing to interpret his silence as a provisional victory, Jim appropriates a little table in the window for himself before Bones can change his mind. A short excavation in his lucky satchel produces a slim laptop, king-sized candy bars, and a pack of gum. 

When the morning rush fades an hour later, Jim finally shuts his laptop and comes up to the counter. 

"What do you want?" Bones asks, voice measured and visibly impatient. 

"A lifetime in customer service, you said?" says Jim, scanning the Specials board for guidance. "Two scones with marmalade, hold the butter."

Bones nods and rings him up without further commentary, but when he arrives at Jim's table with a plate of freshly baked scones there is a considerable helping of something suspiciously like creamed butter sitting on the tray beside them. Jim squints at it, unsure of what he was looking at exactly.

"Clotted cream," says Bones, and Jim would bet good money he heard a smirk in his tone. "It's good for you, kid."

"Jim," Jim corrects, curling the thick cream around a finger, fascinated by its elasticity. "Call me Jim."

"Alright then, Jim: quit poking the cream and eat your damn food." 

"This isn't food, it's glue," counters Jim, but his snark is forgotten once he tastes the suspiciously heavy cream. "Holy shit," he breathes, "Bones. Bones, what is this?"

Busy wiping down tables and cleaning up after the last patrons, Bones doesn't even spare him a look. "It's still clotted cream."

"What does that mean? Did you make it?" Jim tears his utensils out of their napkin, eagerly shoveling cream into his mouth. "Bones, this might be better than sex."

A lingering silence fills the room. Jim looks over at where Bones had been busy wiping down the last unoccupied table in the cafe, and notices that his head is bowed forward beyond the strict tension in his shoulders. Carefully, he puts the mostly-empty cup of clotted cream down beside his plate. Rather belatedly he has become aware of just how difficult it might be to bullshit and back-peddle with a man who can spot a lie faster than most could find a carcass in a swimming pool. 

Yet when Bones straightens and turns back to his only remaining morning customer, the corner of his mouth is tugged upwards rather than into their natural scowl. With any other person the expression might have been casual, but for Bones it turned his sour mood into mirth. 

"Just for that, I'll show you where the magic happens," says Bones, waving Jim over as he walked back behind the counter again. "Maybe it'll put some meat on your bones."

"I'll have you know there are people would kill for this body," Jim counters, omitting how many more would in fact prefer to simply kill said body. But he eagerly accepts the apron Bones offered him before the baker could change his mind, and after four attempts he manages to get the damn thing tied on correctly. Self-satisfied and ready, he rubs his hands together and looks around the workspace with inflated confidence. "Where can I put these award-winning hands to use for you, Bones?"

A sound akin to a groan or a strangled whimper escapes Bones, and he's staring at Jim in disbelief. "Don't make me regret this, kid," Bones growls and gives a quick nod toward the sink. "Don't be disgusting, either."

"Is it a policy to assume all your potential partners aren't clean?" says Jim with an innocent smile, washing his hands with obnoxious care. When he feels Bones's stare boring a hole through the back of his head he finally looks up and rinses his hands off. 

Ignoring his question, Bones hustles him instead to a prepared work station, complete with a single sheet of instruction. 

"I might not be a professional baker," says Jim, eyeing his ingredients dubiously. "But does cream really need flour?"

"Baby steps, Jim," Bones answers, too busy preparing an enormous bowl of salad to look Jim's way. "I'm not trusting you with my clotted cream recipe 'til I know you can tell a cup from a bowl."

But that smirk on his lips echo a different motive, one which Jim with all his super-spy know-how catches on to immediately. 

"Cheap labor!" Jim cries, tossing the instructions on the counter with dramatic flair. Both men watch the paper gracefully flutter to the floor without a sound, undermining Jim's outburst entirely. Bones snickers and turns away to clear his throat. "Is that all I am to you, cheap labor?"

"Please don't presume you can intimidate me with your skinny little chicken legs," says Bones all too sweetly, but in an outstretched palm he offers Jim half an apple. It looks crisp and tart and perfect, and Jim accepts his symbolic apology. 

"It's half an apple, you're only half-off the hook," Jim clarifies around a mouthful of apple. "So what's this, tea cakes?"

"Oh goody, you can read," Bones drawls, turning on the industrial mixer and handing Jim his weapons: a scraper and a rolling pin. "Mix it, roll it out, cut it, bake it."

Jim gets busy creaming the butter and the sugar, humming like a deaf man as he peered into the mixer. "A little trick I learned at Berkeley," he says absently after several minutes of relative peace. 

"They teach you to croon like a dying eel at Berkeley?" Bones frowns, shaking his head to himself and turning back to the pie crust he was rolling out. "Crown jewel my ass."

"It's certainly _a_ jewel," Jim murmurs, smiling innocently when Bones' head snaps up. "Sprinkles?"

"What?"

"For the tea cakes," says Jim, smiling. "Where are your sprinkles?"

"I don't put sprinkles on my tea cakes, Jim."

"Who's uncouth now?" Jim stops the mixer and starts pulling every drawer and cupboard open in his quest for sprinkles. "What is this, the only bakery in all of California without sprinkles?"

There's a sudden loud crack behind him, and Jim jumps around to see an unopened multi-pack container of sprinkles waiting for him by his counter. Bones has his back turned, mixing the filling for his five quiches. Jim tears the packaging off with shameless glee and tries them all. Satisfied, he puts the container down within reach and starts flouring his hands and workstation so he can roll out the dough. There aren't many fun cookie cutter designs to choose from, but he chooses the star, and before Bones can stop him there is a minor galaxy representing all the colors of the rainbow in one of his ovens. 

"Goddamnit Jim, pink?" Bones glares into the oven, "Why would you make a star _pink_?" 

"Because stars produce light, and within the visible spectrum of light we observe all colors, including pink."

"No, Jim, we don't." Bones answers dryly, "Pink and purple don't exist in the visible spectrum." 

Jim only hesitates a moment in his surprise, unprepared for Bones to catch his half-assed science. "Without stars and light pink and purple wouldn't exist at all."

Bones turns to face him with a smug little smile, "Alright smartass, not bad. Let's see how you do with custard squares."

✠

They pass the dead hours between breakfast and lunch baking, assembling sandwiches, and arguing over the appropriate portion size for sampling. But as noon-time lunch hour grows closer and the volume of patrons steadily increase, Jim is banished to his table before Bones has to answer questions he really has no patience for. 

Around three-thirty, Bones has enough time for a breather. 

Around four o'clock, he appears over Jim's shoulder. Jim didn't seem to notice; he continues tapping away on his keyboard, wrapped up in his story and possibly having an out of body experience. 

"What's a buttery burr?" says Bones, unimpressed. 

"An alliteration, Bones," Jim answers vaguely, tapping away with purpose and thoroughly unwilling to humor Bones while he was in the zone. 

"A Frenchman in a kilt?" Bones continues, leaning back against the table behind Jim with a huff. "You might as well dress the man in bumbee tartan and complete the indignity."

The tapping halts immediately, and slowly Jim turns in his seat to face the man perched on the table behind him. "Alright, I'll bite. What's bumbee tartan?"

Bones raises an eyebrow in a pointed look, but eventually he deigns to answer Jim's question. "Bumbee tartan is an unnamed tartan, Jim." 

Jim considers his information for a moment, but in the end he simply shrugs and turns back to his writing. "Right, well. Firstly, he is not French, and secondly, come talk to me when the New York Times calls you a best-selling author." 

Behind him Bones rolls his eyes and wipes his hands casually with a tea towel. He allows some minutes of enthusiastic tap-tapping to pass before he innocently says, "There's two left-over custard squares,"

Jim nearly trips over his lucky satchel in his hurry to get out of his seat, wasting no time in liberating the tantalizing dessert from behind the counter. Lost in bliss, he fails to catch Bones scanning his computer screen again, grinning. 

✠

"Honey, I'm home!" Jim sing-songs as he opens the door, juggling his three bags of take-aways while locking the door and twisting out of his jacket. 

"Oh, thank god you're here!" Sulu intercepts him before he makes it into the sitting room to help him carry the bags in, trusting Jim to follow. "He's eating us out of house and home, what took you so long?"

"I'm so confused," Jim throws a look over his shoulder towards the three sets of jackets and shoes by the door, wondering who the third man might be. "This isn't a Whose Line skit, is it?"

"Scotty arrived five hours ago, consumed everything, and now he's sleeping the jet lag off _in my bed._ " 

Just to piss him off some more, Jim grins. "Is my little Baby Bear grumps?"

"Gentlemen," Chekov finally intervenes from his place in front of the screen, only sparing them a cursory glance. "Please, bring the food closer and then you can fight."

"Yeah, cause I didn't learn my lesson with giving Scotty free reigns earlier."

But Jim doesn't seem to find a fault in that plan, so he takes up Sulu's former seat next to Chekov directly in front of the monitors and starts digging out the various boxes of food. "I didn't know what you wanted, so it's left-overs from the bakery." 

"Is there any of the bacon and kale quiche?" Chekov perks up without taking his eyes off the screen, entranced by the compiling data and photos sporadically zooming across the right side of the monitor. 

When he can't find the left-over slices of quiche in the three boxes stacked inside his bag, Jim turns a flat stare on Hikaru until the other man surrenders the bags and stomps off to the kitchen. 

"You brief Kirk, I'll get the plates. Drinks?"

Both men holler for coffee between bites of their prosciutto and provolone sandwiches while Chekov summarizes the day's highlights. 

"Without a surveillance system, the laundromat gives us nothing to compare data to. But, throughout the day the computer has collected enough data to find average time it takes for regular customers to operate the machines. Now we wait for cross-reference compilation to determine possible matches, and if any of these people have known records. Compilation will be complete in approximately two hours."

"Does anyone go in without doing laundry?"

"Children mostly, and people who do not have appropriate detergent," says Chekov, "Still, we keep track of them as well. Assuming Keats was at least 16 in first alleged act of terrorism in 1987, we eliminate all patrons under age of 40. However, we concluded earlier to perhaps allow for patrons who look as young as 30 due to advancements in plastic surgery." 

"Tell him about Mr. Potato Head!" Sulu prompts from the kitchen. 

"During the day, we saw four people repeatedly loitering outside Wash & Dry," says Chekov, "Hikaru is convinced that this man he dubs Mr. Potato Head is suspicious."

"Nobody walks their pug seven times in a day outside a laundromat, not when there is a park half a block away," Sulu argues as he returns to the sitting room, placing tea pot, coffee, and bottles of water on the table along with plates and utensils for their food. "He's too buff to own a pug anyway."

"It is not a pug, it is a French Bulldog," Chekov says not for the first time that day. "All fit dog owners do not own medium sized dogs."

"Yes they do, it's science."

"The word you are looking for is statistics, and statistics can be manipulated by any fool. Therefore, I reject your conclusion." 

Hikaru squawks at the indignity and turns to Jim for back-up. 

"Don't give me that look, man. It sounds like bullshit to me, too." 

The Judas duo high-five and share a laugh at Sulu's expense. Pavel's eyes continue to track numbers and faces flickering across the computer screens, and Jim leans back comfortably to look over the handful of potential suspects they've already gathered. Hikaru goes back to studying blueprints of the nearby shops lining Guerrero St. and Oakwood St. behind the Wash & Dry. They eat, and they pass the night in silence. 

✠

On the third day, Bones spends his dead hours subjugated to a draft of Jim's latest chapter. The enthusiasm in his performance was directly proportional to Bones' inclination to punt his shiny computer through the window. 

"How can he nuzzle her earlobe when she's sitting on his chest?" Bones complains, regretting his choice of tea over coffee for the fourth time in the past hour. "Matter of fact: how is she _sitting on his chest_ in a - what did you call it?"

"A _seething river_ ," Jim sighs, scribbling more notes into the margin. "Could you stop interrupting? We're checking for cohesion and flow."

"I'll stop if you'd quit breaking the laws of physics," Bones snaps back, finally giving up and going to make himself some coffee. "And you can't call the damn castle _Badcall Castle_."

"For the last time, it's a real place!"

"So is Cockermouth, that doesn't mean you should choose it as a setting for your book!"

Jim blinks. "There's a real place called _Cockermouth_?"

"Yes," Bones answers in monotone, but since he can practically feel the mischief thrumming through Jim's veins, he can't resist adding, "On Cocker River."

Jim is practically panting with shameless glee, and for the next minute or five he is so busy scribbling away on his hardcopy that Bones actually manages to walk around and get a look at it before Jim catches on and clutches his draft to his chest. He shoves Bones away with a scowl of his own. "Bones! You can't read ahead, it'll defeat the whole purpose of listening."

Bones goes willingly, snickering. "You're one to talk. You're making your Scottish highlander an Englishman? You can't pee down both legs, Jim, you gotta make a choice."

"He's not the only character in the book," says Jim defensively. A soft ping from his computer catches his attention though, and before Bones can ask what it is or find something else to criticize, Jim has abandoned his draft and is stepping out to make a call. 

When Jim returns several minutes later, his shoulders are tense and in place of his Cockermouth glee he seems dark and broody. 

"You alright there, Jim?" 

Jim looks startled at first to hear Bones' voice, but with a heavy sigh and dragging feet he makes his way to a seat by the counter where he can mope and watch Bones work without conflict. "Yeah," he says, stacking his arms on the counter and slouching to rest his head in the make-shift nest. "Just this guy from… well, a past life."

"That bad?" Bones frowns, offering Jim a generous spoonful of vanilla custard. 

Jim eats his spoonful in silence, mesmerized by the way Bones methodically went through dozens and dozens of enormous eclair pastries, filling each with custard. After several silent minutes he finally sighs, and Bones cocks an eyebrow as if to prompt to go on with whatever Jim was about to share. 

"We were together for six years," he begins, "Virtually inseparable the whole time, too. Traveled together, cooked, ate, slept - even at work we'd end up texting each other, it was that unnatural to be apart. He was so… so pragmatic, infuriatingly rational even, but he kept me grounded, you know? I trusted him with everything. Then one day, he leaves me for someone else. No explanation, just… greener pastures, I guess."

Bones says nothing. Instead he goes about his work, topping each pastry with dark chocolate glaze, and the silence gradually becomes more relaxed and welcome. Once finished, he hands his chocolate spoon to Jim and goes to put the eclairs in the fridge for keeping. 

"Your turn," Jim announces around his spoon. 

"My turn?" says Bones, distracted by the process of shifting the content of his fridge around to make room for his pastries. "I don't recall agreeing to any school-yard rules, Jim."

"Implied and mandatory," says Jim. He's sitting up straighter and has his chin in his palm instead, and Bones capitulates sooner than Jim might have expected. 

"Who's to say I even have a sordid past?" Bones leans his hip against the closed fridge door, staying several feet away and crosses his arms over his chest. "I left my wife, but not before she had the right to everything in the divorce."

"Everything?"

"Everything," Bones repeats back to him, running a hand through his hair. "My home, my business, my money, my car." He hesitates a moment before adding, "My daughter."

Jim's mouth and throat run drier than dirt, and hears himself stammering, "Your daughter?"

But Bones pushes away from the fridge and shakes his head, waving off his concern, "No, trust me Jim, it was better for her that way. I was no use to anyone at the time; don't have the temperament for children anyhow. She is with a good family, and I visit her from time to time. That's all I need."

Jim nods as he tried to process what Bones said and school his expression into something other than empathetic heartbreak. If Bones was satisfied, he should be, too. 

That didn't mean he wasn't going to murder that ex-wife though. Just a little.

✠

Jim wakes with a start and nearly falls off his chair in his attempt to swing around and catch whoever had made a grab for him. His bleary eyes finally make out Bones' smirk, and soon enough the rest of him comes into focus as well. He scowls, rubbing his itchy eyes. "What do you want?"

"I think it's time for you to go home, Jim," Bones says in a lowered voice, and slowly Jim realizes that of the half-dozen patrons sitting in the bakery, all of them are looking at him, too. "You're being a little… vocal."

Jim swears under his breath and looks appropriately shamed. He clears his throat quietly and whispers, "Bad?"

Bones simply snickers and walks away. It is dark outside, and the laundromat closed nearly an hour ago. The monitor in front of him displays approximately 16,000 more words in his draft than he could last remember. In what he hopes is a casual-looking yawn he smells his breath to see if he had somehow consumed careless amounts of alcohol in the past four hours. 

Jim can't pack up fast enough. 

✠

"Don't you have a job to do?" Bones asks on Jim's fourth consecutive day at Falko, beating the egg whites with more force than was perhaps necessary. "Don't you have a life? A girlfriend, a boyfriend? A eukaryote of some kind?"

"I told you, Bones, I'm a writer," Jim smiles, casually draping himself over the display case to survey his breakfast prospects. "Inspiration and instinct take me where I need to be." 

Very little remained of the breakfast quiches, scones, and sandwiches that made up Falko's breakfast menu earlier in the day, and now, slowly but surely, Bones was working through that late-morning lull to make the more indulgent items for his lunch crowd. Jim had walked in just as the blackberry and lemon cream tarts were set out to cool and the raspberry pavlovas went into oven. 

Bones just snorts, not even bothering to look up. He is too busy whisking egg yolks into the smooth folds of melted dark Valrhona chocolate to waste his time on Jim's bullshitting. "I can practically smell the lie, kid. I've seen your writing, remember?"

"It's not a lie," Jim counters with some heat, his defiance a clear contrast to the laughter bright in his eyes, "Fifteen published novels in the past six years." 

Bones glances at him, dubious, or possibly nauseated. Rather than rise to the baiting, he presents Jim with a large silicone spatula dripping with chocolate batter. It is a shameless distraction tactic that is predictably successful: Jim checks out of the solar system, allowing Bones the peace and quiet he needs to distribute the batter into individual ramekins. 

"Hey, I write quality stuff!" Jim resumes once the spatula is clean, pointing the dangerous end at Bones. "I'll have you know I'm working on my second murder-mystery right now."

"And somehow my little bakery has become your inspiration?" Bones rolls his eyes, wiping his hands dry as he read his own menu for the day. "What's the title, Jim, _A Brew To A Kill_?"

"That's a real book, you know," Jim chastises, "it's not half bad."

Bones watches him suspiciously, weighing his next words carefully before conceding, "I know."

"You know? Know what, that it's a book or that it is good?"

"Yes," Bones admits, letting Jim digest his answer in the precious few moments it took for him to get his chocolate soufflés into the oven.

"I wouldn't have pegged you for a Coffeehouse mystery reader, Bones!" laughs Jim, reaching eagerly for the chocolate-covered whisk and scraper Bones nearly threw into the sink. Bones hesitates for show before handing them over. "Can I just have one like this? I'll pay for it and everything."

"I can't serve raw eggs, Jim," Bones sighs, wiping his hands clean on a clean towel and checking his watch. He throws a quick glance around his work space before turning to Jim, giving him the pointed look of a man about to face down his least attentive puppy to _sit, stay_. "Do not touch my soufflé, Jim."

"Yeah yeah, but it's not even done yet," Jim smiles sweetly, because of course he's not attacking it yet; instead, he casually leans over the counter to indulge in the sight of Bones walking into the back kitchen. 

"Not the pavlovas either, Jim!" Bones calls as the door closes behind him, but if there are any further threats directed at Jim once the door shuts, it's not Jim's fault the room is sealed like a vault. 

The silence brings a certain peace to the room, and Jim finds himself studying the little cafe. His workspace was streamlined and minimalist, three identifiable stations with all the necessary tools mounted to favor his right hand. Yet it didn't escape Jim's attention how each of the four coffee mugs Bones had abandoned around his counter were consistently turned with their handles pointing to the left, or how the dry erase markers were situated to the left of Falko's _Daily Specials_ board. His lips turned up in private sin, daydreaming and half-heartedly admiring the pristine knives arranged on the wall. 

Jim startled out of his thoughts to the sound of the solitary brass bell hanging off the door handle. Falko was closed. 

With a big yawn, Jim picked himself off the glass counter with a satisfying stretch, turning to face the approaching man. He was tall, nearly as tall as Jim, with a gash across his left ear that identified him as a mark from a time Jim would rather forget. "So that's what that smell was."

"Morning, _Captain_ ," the man snarls, spitting out his name. He advances without hesitation, gun drawn before Jim can reach for his. "This is for my brother, you fucking queer."

✠

"Stop hovering, you'll smother him," growls Bones, carefully lying the unconscious patron in bed. With quick, steady hands, he corrects his position and checks his vitals again before stepping back to give him some space. "He ain't dead, Jim."

Jim is hanging back a few feet, a hand anxiously rubbing his neck. "And he'll stay like that, right? Not-dead?"

"It looks like it's just a bump, I'm sure he'll come to soon," Bones grudgingly soothes, sitting down on the floor by the bed. When Jim doesn't follow quickly enough, he just sighs and pats a spot on the floor beside himself. Jim seems confused at first, the incarnation of a newborn giraffe attempting to fold his legs for a treat. 

"What if it's a bad concussion?" he asks once he's seated, pointedly looking away from the unconscious man in Bones's bed. "What if he's bleeding into his skull right now?" 

"If he did, then," Bones begins, but is interrupted again. 

"What if he's had a seizure? I haven't seen a seizure before, how dangerous is a seizure?"

"He wouldn't just--"

"What if he's dying, Bones!"

"Damnit man, be quiet!" Bones roars, having had it with Jim's stampeding guilt. "I'm a baker, not a doctor!"

Shocked into silence, Jim openly stares at Bones. His skin is pale, and his eyes grow wider in fear so sincere it is settling into the darker corners of his chest, disturbing old walls and fresh wounds. 

"My father was a surgeon, Jim," Bones tries again, deliberately lowering his voice. "I wasn't cut out to be one myself, but I know enough: this guy's gonna be alright."

They spend several minutes in less than companionable silence, Jim staring through the floor boards, and Bones resting his head against the occupied bed, his eyes shut. 

When he speaks it is only in a whisper, but his voice rumbles in the silence and brings Jim back to the present. 

"Cancer," Bones whispers, but the gravity of his words seizing Jim's attention in the relative silence. "Doctors gave him nine months to live while I was holidaying in Portugal with my girlfriend. He only got five. His whole life he lived and breathed medicine… shitload of good medicine ever did him."

Jim lifts his head, interest rejuvenating his expression and bringing color to his face, but he still can't bring himself to look away from the floor. 

"This is his dream, all of it. Every night we'd sit right here, work our way through all the books he never read." 

The silence that follows weighs on Jim's shoulders, pressing in, dredging through his conscience, calling to his basest instinct, and finally it is all he can do to look at Bones. The man's eyes are closed, his head settled back comfortably; but his expression is broken, his tears invisible in their old age. 

When he speaks again the gravity of his voice has ebbed away, leaving only a fragile confession never before shared. 

"Our best memories together, and I just watched him die."

✠

Within the hour Sulu arrives to collect his 'recovering friend'. Other patrons require Bones to stay in the bakery, but Jim shows Sulu up to the loft apartment. 

In the relative privacy of the stairway, Jim stops Hikaru to inform him of an immediate change in their plan. "We end this tomorrow, Sulu."

"You can't possibly be serious," says Hikaru, glancing in either direction to be sure no-one was coming. "We don't have data to go on, there is no direction for us to take yet. Don't blow this on some half-assed hunch, Jim, it's --"

"We have to get Bones out of there," Jim growls back, twitching with frustration. "Sulu, they know who I am, they know I'm here. I'm not going to let him die because of my fucking arrogance --"

Confusion strikes Sulu in the face like a wet sock, and he wrinkles his nose in distrust. "Who _are_ you?"

Seven years ago, Uhura took a page out of Theban commander Gorgidas's ancient playbook to partner Jim and Hikaru. Although no romance brewed, the Sacred Band was true; the pair quickly became inseparable. After the betrayal, Hikaru was the only presence Jim welcomed and trusted. 

"What happened?" Hikaru prompts instead. 

"It's Nero's brother," Jim sighs, anger and fatigue rising in tandem. 

"Drop off?"

"Chekov got it arranged with the Feds," Jim answers quietly. "Less paperwork." 

Hikaru pauses, considering Jim's lack of interest. "He really made your cover?"

Jim nods once, his bleary expression transitioning into miserable guilt. 

"Alright, _fine_ ," Sulu finally concedes, leaving Jim and swearing his way up the stairs to retrieve the useless runt ruining their plans. "Tomorrow."

✠

Tea cake recipe, taken directly from [Tea Cakes for Tosh](http://www.kellystarlinglyons.com/index.html), by Kelly Starling Lyons.

2 sticks sweet cream butter  
1¾ cup sugar, plus additional for topping  
3 eggs, lightly beaten  
1½ tsp. pure vanilla extract  
3⅓ cups all-purpose flour  
½ tsp. salt  
1 tbsp. baking powder  
pinch of cinnamon, plus additional for topping  
rainbow jimmies (optional)  
shortening (for lightly greasing the cookie sheet) | 

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (176 degrees C).  

  2. Cream softened butter and sugar. Mix in the eggs and vanilla until well-blended and fluffy. Stir in flour combined with the next three ingredients. Mix thoroughly.  

  3. Lightly flour your hands so working with the dough is easier. Roll dough on a floured board, table or counter. (Note: Tea cakes should be thick. Don't roll out too thin.)  

  4. Cut into circles or shapes with the floured rim of a glass or cookie cutter. Place on greased cookie sheet. Top with cinnamon sugar or rainbow jimmies.  

  5. Bake until the cookies are set, about 12-14 minutes. Watch them carefully. Cool and enjoy. Store in an airtight container to keep them soft. Makes about approx. dozen cookies, depending on size.

  
---|---


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These, these will give the world another heart,  
>   And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum  
> Of mighty workings?—————  
>   Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.
> 
> Keats, Addressed to the Same (excerpt).

On the fifth day, Jim was not Falko's first patron. There was a man seated at Jim's table, the one by the window overlooking the Wash & Dry across the street. For all the world this man was consumed by the copy of _The Republic_ in his hands, blissfully ignorant of Jim's recent entrance. But this was the one man Jim could recognize anywhere by the cut of his hair; by the tempo of his gait; by the smell of his body. In a previous life, he would have called this man his Spock. 

Now, seated in Falko, a model of the casual scholar, he was the embodiment of danger in all its conceivable permutations.

Despite appearances, Jim knew he had been made - he was as obvious to Spock as a rhinoceros lobbying for elbowroom in a cable car. The moment Jim had turned up on Guerrero, his distracted humor led him squarely in Spock's trap. 

"In or out, Jim, make up your mind," Bones sighs, because Jim stalled in the doorway is complicating his business of heaving a crate of oranges onto the counter. "You can't just stand there, you're damn a fire hazard."

For the first time since his reinstatement with the Agency, Jim hesitates. Hesitating five days too late. He had been so consumed by the ghosts of his former missions discovering Falko and Bones that Spock had never been considered. Less than two years ago Jim would sooner have eaten a pinecone than doubt Spock's moral principles, but if the scars on his leg did not caution him, even Jim had to admit dismissing the baker - such an obvious advantage, such an accessible weakness - would be highly illogical. 

If he had a chance to save Bones still, he had to convince Spock otherwise. 

"Breakfast for the road?" says Jim and strides up to the counter, keeping his arms to himself as he studied the menu from a distance. Bones head jerks up, his brows furrowing in confusion at Jim's obvious change in attitude. Jim offers him no explanation and indulges no impulse, and when he turns to look at Bones directly it is without affection. "One almond pecorino, and one jamon and gruyere, please."

Bones silently goes about filling his order. Jim can tell he is hurt, but his silence betrays something else, something more complicated than hurt. In his effort to maintain nonchalance and disinterest Jim avoids eye contact, but after four days with this man he knows where else to look for his tells. 

Bones's hands are quivering. His actions are automatic, his execution flawless, but there are pauses between them, subtle delaying tactics. His hands reveal alarm. 

Before Jim can dwell on it for too long, Bones has rung him up and is pushing the light cardboard box across the counter for him to take. Payment given, transaction complete, Jim accepts his breakfast and turns to leave without a glance back or more than a polite, "Thanks". 

"Jim." 

With one foot on the pavement outside, Jim halts and snatches the object moving in a perfect trajectory for his head out of the air. He looks down, head cocked in confusion: he is holding an orange. 

"Vitamin C for the road."

And just like that, the man who had become his friend in four short days transforms back into the anonymous baker in need of an attitude adjustment. Grateful and heavy on his feet, Jim moves on. 

At his seat by the window table, Spock closes his book. With effortless grace, he tidies up around himself and observes Jim Kirk crossing the street. His former Captain, the man who had once mattered more than life or death. His Jim. 

Silently, he follows. 

✠

Neither of them gets very far. Spock reaches Jim outside the Wash & Go, but with a fast turn and faster draw, Jim muscles himself into Spock's personal space with his Sig Sauer pressed into the man's gut. 

But where Jim expects a fight, Spock merely holds his palms up and calms his breathing. His placidity spurns greater rage in Jim, who digs the barrel of his pistol further under Spock's ribcage and throws his arm across Spock's shoulders to conceal the weapon between them. To the rest of the world, they might just be old friends sharing an embrace. 

"If it's my life you want, Spock, you should have taken the shot yourself," Jim hisses against Spock's cheek. "You wouldn't have missed."

"You mistake my intent," whispers Spock, reciprocating the hug without malicious intent. "Your safe extraction was imminent: you should not have followed me."

"You were my partner! Did that mean so little to you?" growls Jim, viciously fisting Spock's cardigan as he pulled back to look the man in the face. Spock looks as confused as Jim feels, but where it stirs further resentment in Jim, in Spock it unfolds as newfound clarity. But neither says a word as an uneasy whistle in the surrounding silence creeps into their attention, and operating on bare instinct they spring apart to narrowly escape a projectile aimed between them. 

Through the sound of shattering glass and gun fire, they hear echoes of shrieking customers inside the laundromat, scattering in the wake of the sudden attack. Jim instinctively rolls back to his feet in a low crouch, and catching sight of movement across the rooftop in his periphery he returns fire. His target drops out of sight not far from Falko. 

Rising and turning to get eyes on Spock, Jim notices a wooden crate lying broken on the floor behind them in a pool of scattered oranges. His whole body grows numb with the realization of where he saw those last. 

"Captain," says Spock, coming to stand beside Jim. Unlike Jim, Spock is at ease in the Weaver stance, his favored Beretta in hand. His attention is directly ahead, but he seems unwilling to act. 

"I need Keats alive," is all Jim says, taking off in a sprint across the street. All present circumstances could only suggest that their attacker was Keats himself, Jim was categorically certain of it. And should Keats reach Bones first, there would be very little left of him for Uhura to interrogate. 

It is first when he breaches Falko that Jim realizes Spock has fallen into their old pattern beside him, poised to offer cover. Spock hadn't hesitated to take action: he had been waiting for instruction. But there was no time to address that now - he could deal with Spock once he had put a continent between Bones and that trigger-happy sociopath.

The eerie silence hangs in the air, and they move efficiently in tandem to clear the small space. Spock is the first to reach the door leading to the back kitchen, but when he throws the door open for Jim to step through, pandemonium shatters the silence with the sound of clattering kitchenware, shattering tiles, and a unnerving wail of agony. 

Jim drops formation and tears past Spock through the open door. Spock follows without hesitation, braced to eliminate anything Jim ignored in his hot entrance. 

As it turns out, the haunting nightmare of Keats torturing Bones is not nearly as paralyzing as the sight of Bones fighting Keats with the useless end of a mop. The two are nearly equally matched in size, and where Bones's broader shoulders delivered greater force, Keats parried his every attack with lethal grace. 

Disguised entirely in black, Keats concealed the severity of his injuries and his identity, a stark contrast to the bruises in plain view through Bones's tattered, blood-stained clothes. The kitchen was already destroyed around them; pots, pans, and pantry stuffers lay ruined across the floor. Once-pristine walls and cooking stations are destroyed and smeared smeared with blood, although neither Bones nor Keats's movements indicate serious injury. 

Pinning the shaft of the mop between his arm and body, Keats slides in close and brutally headbutts Bones in the nose. Dazed, Bones stumbles back and abandons his weapon, wiping at his face as if he couldn't believe he was bleeding his own blood. With a roar he bodily throws himself at Keats, lifting the latter off his feet and ramming him headfirst the wall. Keats' scream is cut short on impact, dropping like a sack of flour once Bones releases him. 

While Keats tries to regain composure and balance on the floor, Bones picks up a nearby kitchen towel and absently wipes the blood off his face. Eventually he reaches down and tears the mask off Keats's head and hauls him to his feet by his blood-stained hair, and in one effortless move Bones pins Keats to the wall with his body and devours his mouth in a savage kiss. A single moan escapes one of them and their bodies grind further together against the supporting wall. 

"Bones!" Jim shouts from the peanut gallery, finally too uncomfortable with everything to continue observing in silence. He couldn't settle on what part of the situation he disliked most, but Spock's fascinated gaze was definitely in the top three.

Bones's head snaps up in surprise and he looks momentarily stunned to discover their audience. Noticing his lapse in attention, Keats lashes out for freedom, burying a dagger in Bones's thigh that finally draws a scream from his lips. With a savage growl Bones punches Keats in the face, dropping his lifeless form to the floor again, this time with a shattered cheekbone. 

With a tired sigh and little sympathy Bones hobbles a few steps away from Keats's body, visibly disgusted. "Damnit Jim," he growls, exhausted and barely audible. "My life was good here before you, you thick bastard."

"I think we need to have a little chat about the culinary arts curriculum," Jim says instead, ignoring Bones's cursing and complaining as he picked his way through the debris to reach him. Bones was leaning against an overturned washing machine, examining the small knife in his leg as if to decide how to best remove it. "Where the hell did _that_ come from?"

Bones rolled his head around to face Jim, his glare seething with incalculable anger and pain. "Now? Fuck you Jim, my bones are fractured and broken, and there's a goddamn knife in my goddamn leg," at which point he jerks the blade free with a long-suffering hiss, throwing it somewhere into the rubble with a flick of his wrist. "And if that don't sit right with you, I just beat up the mother of my child, so shut up before I do the same to you."

"Keats is a woman?" Jim blurts out before he can stop himself, and he squints down at Keats's limp form. Sure enough, under the blood, darkening bruises, and shards of tile, he can make out the feminine elegance in her face, the concealed curves of her body. He blinks again, frowning in confusion. "She's the _mother of your child?_ "

"How can you make three mistakes with two questions?" Bones groans, drawing a hand through his hair. "I am the Keats you're looking for, Jim."

Jim stares at him, dumbfounded. If that was true, Bones had passed up infinite opportunities to kill Jim; or worse, flee. He had stayed. Realization grows warm in Jim's body, and he leans in dangerously close to one of the most dangerous men in modern history to whisper a soft confession against Bones's ear. "You won't hurt me Bones. You like me, thick and all. But tell me: how did you know?"

Bones is silent for a long time. Jim stands his ground, resisting the urge to give Bones his personal space and let this man slip away.  

"Nyota," is Bones's plain answer when it comes. "We have history."

Spock visibly shifts with discomfort and attention. 

Recognizing the implied threat of simply being known to a man like Keats, Jim's expression darkens. Carefully he pulls away, standing up to tower over Bones at his full height. "How do you know that name?"

"She's not dead, Jim," Bones reminds him instead, gesturing towards his unconscious ex. "She'll wake up in a minute. I'd restrain her if I were you." 

His nonchalance strikes an unintended nerve, and from behind Jim Spock fires his weapon. Scotty's old silencer muffles the sound almost entirely, and, had it not been for the tuft of Bones's hair that falls to his shoulder, the bullet may have passed unnoticed. 

Jim rounds on Spock, gun drawn and trained on the man's heart. "Drop your weapon."

"Get out of the way," Spock bites back, realigning to compensate for Jim's interference. "You will answer the question!"

A waft of fresh air announces the arrival of another person and silence falls over the kitchen. 

"You should be more concerned about your own answers, you spineless bastard," says Sulu, snarling through gritted teeth. He advances on Spock with purposeful brutality, stalling within reach only out of concern for the man at the receiving end of Spock's pistol. 

"I am not a bastard, Mr. Sulu. I am an orphan," Spock corrects, forcing his voice back to its natural, even tone. His eyes remain on Jim as he takes a step back, re-holstering the Beretta. 

"Sulu, see Keats directly to Marcus. Tell her our score is settled." Jim lowers his weapon in return, but he doesn't turn his attention away from Spock yet, not entirely. 

With one final look at Spock, Sulu moves past them both to secure Keats for transport. He zip-ties her wrists, elbows, and ankles together, then heaves her up in a fireman's carry. Once they leave, Jim gets busy tying up his own Keats, wrapping up the wound in his leg and patching up a nasty, superficial scrape across his shoulder. 

Bones barely acknowledges him or the pain. His eyes are falling shut and his body is slowly curling in on itself, but through sheer stubbornness his full attention remains focused on his ex. It is only when he hears the car drive away that he finally lets go. A mortal relief washes the fight out of him, allowing his body to wilt under the overwhelming pain and sudden exhaustion. His eyes close, and as the adrenaline drains from his veins he is consumed by gravity and drawn to the earth. 

Jim's arm automatically shoots out to catch him, and he is all that saves Bones from taking a nose-dive into the tiles. Bones falls into him so willingly that Jim aggressively bundles him up in both arms, rubbing his arms gently to warm him up. Even through their clothes he can feel Bones shivering in a sudden chill, twitching from the effort of stealing every wheezing breath. Color drains from his face and his lips before Jim's eyes, and soon Bones' eyes have glazed over and lost the ability to focus. 

"Bones?" Jim whispers at last, startled and fighting a rising panic. "Bones! Bones, open your eyes, look at me." 

Bones manages a shallow inhale, grimacing through the effort. Unable to raise his head he simply lets it fall to the right in an attempt to focus. 

"Jim," he tries, gasping for breath. One aching word at a time he manages to whisper, "Jim, isolate her."

"Don't you dare," Jim growls, shuffling quickly to move around to Bones' side and bodily lift him to to his feet. Without a word Spock steps in on the other side to help Jim carry his weight, and together the two men carry him out of the rubble. 

Between Spock's driving and Scotty's remote traffic control intervention they deliver Bones to the San Francisco General Hospital within minutes. 

Jim never stops talking. He curses and he begs, and for a short while it works: Bones fights to keep his eyes open and his head turned to Jim. And once the ECG flatlines, that is how he remains. 

✠

Spock and Jim stand side by side in the ICU waiting room. Spock, ever the exemplar of composure, stands comfortably at parade rest with his eyes on the double doors. Jim, on the other hand, is staring the doors down so viciously he might have forgotten to breathe. Adrenaline lit his blood on fire, his muscles convulsing in a futile effort to fight, to protect the man he had so carelessly thrown under the bus. 

"Captain, if I may inquire as to how you--" says Spock without preamble, taking a step to the side to face his former partner. 

" _Captain_ is no more, Spock. You saw to that."

Spock paused for a moment to consider, then said instead, "Mr. Kirk, if I may inquire as to how--"

"What are you doing here Spock?" says Jim, cutting him again with a low growl. "What's this about, forgiveness? Gratitude? Or are you delusional; do you think I will welcome you back with open arms just because you had my back today? There is no place for you here: not in this team, not beside me."

"I am here for Keats, Mr. Kirk, I am not here for you or your team," Spock answers without hesitation, although he does regard Jim carefully as he spoke. "When I left ten months ago it was to find Keats. This was a personal undertaking, one which I have waited for all of my adult life. I did not wish to involve or endanger others, yourself included."

Setting his jaw and keeping his arms where they were crossed over his chest, Jim grits out one word at a time. "Go to hell, Spock." 

Nurse Chapel, a long-time friend of Uhura's, marches through the door before Jim has a chance to continue. Her reputation as a woman of unspeakable dependability is clear in her poise and her every step, and in this moment, the guarded smile on her face is enough to distract Jim with hope. 

She comes in close and draws them in even closer by keeping her voice low. "He is stable and responsive, the best we could hope for given his circumstances. The worst of it seems to be the effects of a poison, we're still waiting for conclusive lab tests. The fractured and broken bones you could have guessed; the worst internal physical injury was to his left lung, a puncture wound. If he gets two to three weeks of rest before he's turned into a punching bag again he might just pull out of this alive."

"Can I see him, is he awake?" says Jim, eager to see Bones alive and breathing again. "What kind of pain is he in?"

"Right now? Not much, he's been high as a kite," Christine says, grinning at something yet unsaid. "He's quite the charmer, in a loopy sort of way. But nothing is easy for him right now with his injuries, I won't allow more than one visitor at a time."

"Take me to him," Jim orders, then turns to Spock to say, "Leave before Sulu sees you. If you want anything from Keats or from my team, take it up with Uhura."

✠

"I'll be damned," Bones murmurs as Jim walks in alone, a dopey grin spreading unevenly across his face. "The Captain himself?" 

"Hey Bones," says Jim, making an effort to smile naturally at the sight of him, and if he succeeds it's only just. Injuries, casts and stitches aren't new to Jim: he has had them himself, he has stood beside those closest to him as they have healed or succumbed to their injuries; he just wasn't prepared to see Bones that way. He looks paler than death, his face gaunt and sallow, and wherever Jim can see his skin it is marred by bruises, blisters, and obscene swelling. 

But Jim refuses to look away. Instead he pulls a chair up close to the bed and leans in closer still, speaking quietly regardless of their privacy. "How're you feeling?"

"Happy on the Devil's home brew," Bones drawls, his grin stretching wider at both ends. It's almost enough to make Jim smile back. "You here to arrest me, officer?"

"Is that a confession, Bones?" Jim answers in a playful whisper, but when Bones's responding grin warps the blackening contusion under his eye, Jim clears his throat and forgoes normalcy. Objectively, he knows this is undoubtedly the most opportune moment to interrogate Keats, to get honest answers out of him. But instead he says, "Keats is in custody. She is in isolation as you requested."

"Keep her there, Jim," says Bones, a flash of ferocity coloring his face and nearly breaking through the haze of drugs. "She's sharp, former KGB. Fooled me months 'fore I got it outta her."

"Truth serum?" Jim hears himself asking, eager despite himself to unravel the legendary criminal prodigy. 

Bones grimaces in confusion, torn between laughing and smacking Jim upside the head. "Nah, Jim, did it the old fashion way: I got her pregnant. Ain't no torture more effective than childbirth."

Jim blinks at him, temporarily mute. "Bones," he says eventually, asking the only question he needs an answer to. "How do you know Uhura?"

"Moldova," he begins, squinting as he struggled to remember. "93? Saw her on a job. She weren't big 'nough to bump knees with crickets, couldn't just leave her."

It was difficult to envision a terrorist who could paralyze nations and international organizations risking his anonymity to save a little girl; a girl who had, in fact, remembered him and grown up to become the woman responsible for tracking him down. It did, however, sound suspiciously like the baker Jim had come to know over the past five days. 

"Darlin', your poker face might be worse than your writing," says Bones, smiling with such mischief Jim was momentarily derailed. "Spit it out 'fore you go madder than a mule chewin' on bumblebees." 

Jim curses under his breath, allowing himself a small smile. "One thing at a time Bones, lets get you out of here first. Anything particular you want for the night?"

"Think you can get a masseur past that nurse?" Bones asks innocently enough. 

"Not sure I'd want to," Jim all but rolls his eyes, leaning back in his seat. "How about a pedicure?"

"Water and some books on tape then," Bones grumbles with a poorly hidden grin. "And get me more drugs, I'm feelin' more and more like the ginger step-son."

"I don't want to know," says Jim and gets up to find Chapel, a small grimace on his face. Once the door shuts behind him he finally takes the deep breath he's been needing to steady himself, raking his fingers through his hair. 

But this time it takes him mere seconds to work through his broken psyche and overwhelming guilt. However small it might be, he has a mission, and it is enough to steady him. He will find Chapel, he will bring Bones the comfort he needs, and until it is time for Uhura's interrogation, this man is Jim's responsibility regardless of his past. 

He marches down the hallway, mindful of the throng as he wove his way through the corridors in search of Chapel. 

"Jim!" a familiar voice calls from behind him, and Jim turns in time to register Christine charging at him, grabbing him by the arm to haul him away directly into a broom closet. 

At first Chapel doesn't move or speak. For one awkward moment Jim doesn't know whether she's going to kiss him, slap him, or shank him. Instinctively he waits for her to make the first move. Even in the darkness she exudes authority, be it by the firm grip she has on Jim's arm, or the absence of her earlier delight in being part of a top secret operation. 

Once she seems satisfied that they have absolute privacy, she slips her phone out of her pocket and flicks it on for light. She pins Jim with a hard look and says in a low, careful voice, "Jim, we need to move your patient out of here. People are talking; they recognize him. Do you have some place we can move him to?"

"What do you mean, recognize him?" Jim counters instead, struggling to continue the whispering. "Do you know who he is?"

"Of course I know who he is, Jim, I knew it the minute I saw him," says Chapel, audibly frustrated. "I don't know what you know about him - and I wouldn't want to - but what I know is undeniable. His injuries were so severe I was hoping the others wouldn't notice. Jim, we need to move him, or he won't have the luxury of anonymity much longer."

"If you get him ready, I can have a space ready within the hour," Jim says without hesitation, because what else could he do? "Who is he, Chapel?"

The nurse only hesitates for one moment before turning to the camera app on her phone, scrolling through her photos until she found the one she meant to give Jim. 

"Four years ago we lost one of our finest surgeons to stomach cancer. He only had one son - I never met him and David rarely spoke of him, but people are putting the pieces together very quickly. Whoever or whatever he is now, his name was once Leonard, Leonard McCoy."

Jim stares at the photo in Christine's phone for a little too long, because sure enough, the man snapping a birthday hat on Christine's pouting face could easily be Bones thirty years from now. He scrolls back and forth, checking out more photos in the series, more photos of Christine and various other hospital staff celebrating her birthday. Dr. McCoy is in nearly every photograph, seamlessly alternating between the doting father figure and the insufferable ringleader Christine must blame for many good memories. 

"He asked for more medication, I think the pain is getting worse," says Jim after a stretch of silence, handing the phone and all its wealth back to her. "I will need a list of everything he needs."

Chapel presses a slip of paper into his hand in answer, and says, "You'll need someone who can drive an ambulance."

"That won't be a problem," says Jim, grinning with pride. "I've got a man who can drive anything."

✠

"Captain, I'm not so sure this is a good idea," says Sulu, buttoning up the navy shirt Chapel had provided. "An ambulance?"

"Might I remind you that you are Hikaru Sulu, the best pilot since dinosaurs ruled the earth?" Jim counters, arms crossed against Sulu's apparent overthinking. "If a Spice Girl can drive a double-decker, you can drive an ambulance."

"It's not the driving that's the problem, sir," Sulu growls, throwing the door open to point out a dashboard with so many switches and lights it could have controlled a small aircraft. "That is my problem. I can't guarantee that we won't be recorded or followed."

"If anybody can make this happen, Sulu, it's you," Jim declares, giving him a slap on the shoulder before abandoning Sulu and his ambulance in the garage. "Don't forget to release the parking break!" 

"That was _one time!_ " 

✠

The plan pans out as most of the Captain's plans are wont to do, which is to say successfully and facilitated by a healthy dose of luck and charm. Within the hour, Chekov draws up papers Scotty would need to pick up medical equipment under the guise of maintenance. Getting Bones out was even simpler: a few alterations to John Doe's file and he is officially due to be transferred into state custody. An hour later, John Doe is no more. 

Jim and Scotty bring Bones into the condo, and with Christine's help, the master bedroom is turned into their own private hospital room. 

Hikaru and Pavel stay in the sitting room and out of the way. 

"First we have no Keats, then we had two, now what?" Hikaru mutters to himself as he paces the floor, all but throwing his hands up in frustration. "How can we be worse off than when we started?" 

"Technically it is not Keats that we have," Chekov says, raising neither his voice or his eyes too far out of his tea. "Keats is the woman."

Hikaru sighs, dropping into an armchair and holding his head in his hands. "But if there are two, why not five? Ten? The Keats we need could be in the wind for all we know."

"She tried to poison him," says Pavel, speaking carefully as if he wasn't sure where he was taking this argument yet. "This suggests a desperation to get him out of the way. It is unclear what for; money, a job; jealousy; even for self-protection she could have done this. Yet, she is the one who attacked first." 

"Then he was not the threat that drew her out, we were. Keats must have known we were getting close," Hikaru continues, trying to join Pavel's attempt to be productive. "But if she knew, she didn't have to attack us. She could have escaped."

"We would have followed," says Pavel, convinced. "If we can find her once, we will always find her again."

"Maybe she knew that one way or another she would soon be captured," Hikaru finishes, leaning back in his chair to consider what that really meant. "Right, if she was cognizant enough to know that, her actions would have been in her best interest, something that could improve her odds once she's captured." 

"Even if your theory is as valid as mine," Pavel interrupts, already latching on to the thread Hikaru was unraveling. "Which is to say _completely_ valid."

"Ha ha," Hikaru deadpans, "Keep talking."

"Even if there are more Keats 'in the wind,' as you say," says Pavel, smirking. "Her actions today suggest that what our Keats knows is worth eliminating. This would mean that, should Keats be of value because of his or her insight into a particular event, eliminating him could make her the only voice on this matter. She would have complete leverage in an interrogation."

"Okay, that makes sense," says Hikaru, easily following Pavel's logic despite his own reluctance to see McCoy as the victim. "But say we question him now on whatever it is Uhura wants: at what point can we believe anything that man says? Infiltration and espionage have only been his MO for decades. My problem is that everything we know about him says he is _the_ authority on overthrowing governments, so why are we not entertaining the possibility that he seduced the seducer?"

"If we are wrong, we requisition Special Agent Marcus for this lady Keats?" suggests Pavel, although even he knows that's improbable at best. 

"A terrorist with a penchant for biochemical weapons?" Sulu blurts out, getting back on his feet to pace through the room again. "We would have to admit to _deliberately withholding_ information and an international criminal - and that's just to get the paperwork started! She would never forgive, and Jim would never forget."

"Mr. Sulu," says Jim, appearing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and looking less pleased than a successful man should. "A word." 

"Yes, sir," says Hikaru and gets up, following Jim into the kitchen. Once they are relatively private, he scrubs a hand over his face and tries again. "I'm sorry, Captain, that was out of line. But you can't blame me for thinking it. I'm worried, you can't underestimate this guy so easily."

Leaning back against the counter and observing Sulu silently, Jim eventually lets go of his frustration and braces himself for Hikaru and his questions. He wasn't a man Jim could afford to ignore. "My gut says that Bones -Keats, whatever you want to call him, was not lying. He is the man we're looking for."

"He could be protecting the woman. He could be protecting somebody else. He could be playing you, sir."

Jim takes a moment to consider what Sulu said, but every conclusion he comes to finishes with a shake of his head. "If he was, he would never have revealed himself. His greatest asset has been his anonymity."

"Cosmetic surgery," Hikaru counters. 

"It's possible," Jim shrugs, frowning at the thought. "But if he knows as much about me as he suggests, he knows better than to try."

"He knows you're still recovering," Sulu says, taking care to lower his voice, "He knows you are weak."

Jim silently holds Hikaru's gaze for a long time, then says, "It is my choice to trust him, and that is how we will proceed." 

Hikaru concedes to Jim's final decision with a nod, however reluctant. 

"Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir."

Jim nods once, satisfied. "First thing tomorrow, I need eyes and ears on Marcus and Keats. Get Scotty inside: I need every detail CIA has access to, I need to know what and who Keats is talking about. If she is not in solitary confinement, kill her."

"Yes, sir."

"There is one more thing, quietly," says Jim, lowering his voice. This he was requesting as a friend, not a superior. "If what he said about his father was true, I have to assume he was telling the truth about his daughter. Find her, Sulu. I need to know that she is safe."

"Consider it done."

✠

The next morning, Hikaru smuggles Scotty into WINPAC, the CIA Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center with terrifying ease. In the time it takes for him to deliver Jim's messages, catch up with Carol, and finish the last of their paperwork describing the context of Keats's capture, Scotty has installed enough hardware to infiltrate the underbelly the United States war room. 

By the time they return to the condo, Chekov has accessed CIA intel on Keats, transcripts and recordings of her interrogations to date, and her medical chart compiled, printed, and annotated. 

"Do you have something against trees, laddie?" says Scotty, taking in the barely contained chaos spread out across the sitting room floor. 

"If you want my results, do not question my methods," Chekov answers without turning away from his work. 

"I wouldn't, but it appears your method has consumed my monitors," Scotty grumbles, scanning the sitting room and the hallways for the three monitors he had hooked up before leaving. 

"Ah, yes," Chekov finally lifts his head and gestures towards the kitchen, "I have moved them to the dining table." 

Sensing the rising tension, Sulu cuts them off. "Mr. Scott, Mr. Chekov, do we have everything we need to move ahead?" 

"I'll go see," says Scotty and makes his way to the kitchen. 

"Yes, sir," says Chekov, pointing out the appropriate spaces in the sitting room as he elaborated. "What they have on Keats, known employers and accomplices; information so far corroborated by lady Keats; Special Agent Marcus also had a particular cache of current threats which she seems to believe are directly or indirectly linked to Keats."

"Are they fail-safes?" says Sulu, sobering to the possibility of a planned attack rather than the chance ambush they saw the day before. He takes a step toward that growing pile of paperwork, but is stopped by Chekov before he gets too far. 

"The data is still compiling, I will inform you once I have looked more closely."

"But you've looked at it, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir. I have skimmed the cases, and I have read Marcus's notes on each," Chekov confirms, but he still does not step aside to let Sulu look. "However, I have no context for these cases and therefore cannot make a conclusive report yet." 

"Uhura trusts you; you are the best at what you do. I don't care if it is inconclusive. In your opinion, do we have any reason to be on alert?"

Chekov throws a cursory glance over the sitting room, considering the information he had gathered so far, however briefly. "No, sir. First, Special Agent Marcus frames her data on one Keats: if it is true that he is the Keats responsible for all crimes committed from 1982 to 1997, it is impossible to know what lady Keats is capable of. Second, her physical condition is more critical. It is very unlikely that she will pose a threat, now or in the near future."

"Not without help," Sulu adds.

"We have no reason to believe Keats, past or present, has employed the use of accomplices. For security, I believe: anonymity has always been Keats's strongest defense."

"I've been told as much," says Sulu, a small grin on his face. "Thank you. Keep Kirk up to date, and if something serious comes up, call me immediately." 

"Where will you be?" Chekov frowns, "Is there something else to be done?"

"One last item, but it is unofficial," says Sulu, offering an apologetic smile. "It's private, that's all I can say."

Scotty comes back to the sitting room with a big grin. "We're in. They are moving her into an interrogation room. Mr. Chekov, you may want to watch this."

Chekov practically jumps at the invitation, barely remembering to wish Sulu good luck before following Scotty into the kitchen. Confident in Chekov and Scotty's combined competence, Sulu leaves them to find and secure the surrogate family of Leonard McCoy's daughter. 

✠

When Christine returns the following day for a lunch-time house call, the condo looks less like an architectural centerfold and more like an archivists nightmare. The sitting room is entirely taken over by neat stacks of paper ranging in height, and on the wall there hangs a map of the world that may or may not have been attacked by finger-painting drunks. The corridor walls, particularly around the stairs, seem to be burdened with the brunt of the load; spreadsheets stretch out for yards in every direction, the small, precise handwritten notes of an engineer squeezed in between many margins and columns. 

The door to the master bedroom door has been left slightly ajar, and from where she stands she can hear Jim reading to McCoy. She smiles to herself and stays where she was, easily drawn in to his animated performance. 

" _Now he knows he has come to his death, he draws his huge sword and wields it with both hands. Achilles draws his sword too. After the day's slaughter the divine blade slit flashes like the sun. There is all the time he could ever want. He looks Hector over, scanning the armour that fits him so well, searching for a place to insert his blade. Like a lover taking in every inch of his beloved as they lie in the hot sun. All the time he could want, no rush, no fear of missing._ "

Christine knocks softly on the door to announce herself, fearing the reading was getting either too violent, too personal, or both. 

McCoy appears to be asleep, and beside him in quite the decorative armchair is Jim, draped casually across both armrests with a copy of Elizabeth Cook's _Achilles_ in his hands. He smiles warmly when he sees her and stands up to greet her. "Chapel, hey. Any news?"

"I got the lab results an hour ago, I thought I'd bring them myself and check in on the patient," says Chapel by way of explanation. She takes out a slim manila folder from her shoulder bag and hands it to Jim, letting him skim through it while she took a look at Leonard. 

"Atropine?" Jim frowns, flipping between the three pages to see if he was correct. "Isn't that fatal?"

"It can be. It appears your gentleman prisoner has built up a resistance, probably through years of intentional exposure," Christine answers without looking away, digging out her stethoscope to examine his heart. 

Bones stirs when the cold chest piece touches his skin, a frown creasing his forehead. Drowsy and apparently well under the influence of morphine, it takes him considerable time to open his eyes and even more to focus on her face, but when a lazy smile stretches across his face it's clear he's pleased by his attendant. He watches her work with unguarded fascination, and in a deep, rumbling voice he murmurs, "Oh, darlin', aren't you as pretty as a speckled kitten, sunnin' itself in a daisy pasture just south of Savannah."

Jim groans, muttering to himself about metaphors and similes. 

Laughter bubbles out of Christine, surprising them both. It doesn't escape Jim's attention that this is the first time he has seen her glow, the real, unburdened smile rejuvenating her before his eyes. 

"Reading distracts him," says Jim quietly, awkwardly, to break the silence, gesturing with the book as if that wasn't obvious. "Ever since he woke up he's defaulted into _southern gentry_ mode. All he talks about are kittens, sunshine, ladybugs, and horses."

Predictably, Christine has no sympathy for his predicament and laughs in his face. "What happened Jim, did he compare thee to a summer's day?"

"I don't think he's capable of something so vague," Jim confesses, turning his attention to Bones again. His eyes had fallen shut and he appears to be sleeping, his breathing shallow but unhindered. A smile betrays Jim's relief, and he's nearly whispering when he continues. "He compared me to stallion cantering across the rivers in Cattahoochee at sunrise on a misty spring day." 

"How poetic," Christine drawls, voice dancing to the tune of her silent laughter. 

Jim rolls his eyes, almost laughing himself. "Yeah, right up until he started talking about bug's ears and made it weird."

"Bug's ears?" Christine's laugh fades, but in its place a warm, affection smile blossoms. She watches Leonard silently for several moments, absently reaching to brush some stray hairs away from his forehead. "Did he say you're prettier than a bug's ear?"

"How did you know?" says Jim, mindful of her change in attitude despite how loudly the word Punk'd now roared in the back of his mind. "Was that what he said to you at the hospital?"

"No," says Christine, barely suppressing a giggle. "Yesterday he said he wouldn't trade me for all the farmland in Ellabell. What every woman wants to hear, I'm sure. No, it was Dr. McCoy who would say it - not so often to me, but on the rare occasion he received pediatric patients. Little girls in particular, they were his 'dazzling Southern belles.'" 

The humor in Jim's eyes sobers to her words. He watches her carefully, acutely aware of how little he knew about the nature her relationship with Dr. McCoy. "I'm sorry for your loss, Christine," he says, however belated. "I didn't realize you were so close."

"He was the closest thing to a father that I had," says Christine, growing grim in thought. But when she sees guilt in Jim's eyes, she makes an effort to smile again, and she easily changes the subject with a little nod toward the book in Jim's hand. "You know, David always talked about finding time to read. It was one of his regrets, a house full of books he never had a chance to read."

Jim opens his mouth to tell her what he knew, give her what comfort he could, but a knock on the door interrupts him. Scotty opens the door and falls more than leans in, held upright only by his grip on the door handle. He flashes Christine an apologetic smile, then turns to Jim and says, "Captain, you need to see this." 

"I'm good here," Christine says before Jim has to ask. "He's doing well, Jim. I'll stay with him, you go." 

They swap positions around the bed, Christine taking a seat in the armchair while Jim exits the room with his engineer. Once the door shuts behind them and their footfalls fade away, Leonard turns his head on the pillow to face Christine. 

"Hello, Leonard," she smiles, pleased and unsurprised. "I have heard a lot about you."

"And I you," he rasps, the words catching in his dry throat. Christine sits up and offers him a glass of water, cradling his head to help him reach the straw. He accepts her help but he never takes his eyes off her. 

"What is it?" Christine asks, growing self-conscious under his extended scrutiny. 

"Thank you," says Leonard, dismissing her fleeting bashfulness easily. "Without you, my father would have been alone."

"Thank you," she answers, finding his hand under the covers and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Without you, he would have died alone."

He turns his hand over to take Christine's hand in his, and he doesn't let go. 

✠

"Marcus has initiated a manhunt, sir," says Scotty even as the door is closing behind Jim. "We can't tell if Keats is takin' the piss or what, but Marcus is taking it seriously."

"Taking what seriously?" 

"We don't know yet sir, kid's going through the interrogation that got it started as we speak," Scotty admits with a frown, bringing Jim up to his monitors. "But you need to see this first."

He rewinds the footage approximately ninety seconds, slowing the video down before pressing play. It is a clear shot of Carol's office, where two suits seem to be receiving their mission details. A folder is passed from Marcus to one of the men, and he confirms the content of the folder with a quick look. The content of the folder doesn't appear in more than a handful of frames, but Scotty pauses and zooms in on the only visible page: _Last known location._

"San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center," Jim reads off the screen, frowning. "That doesn't make sense, she wouldn't come after us."

"I don't believe she is, sir," says Scotty, scrolling further down the page. "We were there hours after the sighting was reported. Could it be an informant?"

Jim curses under his breath, immediately digging his phone out of his pocket. "She's going after Spock. Find him - and get me Sulu!" 

"Aye, Captain," Scotty answers automatically, clearing his screens to bring up road traffic control and San Francisco CCTV. Behind him Jim puts in a quick update with Uhura while he holsters his Sigs and rifles through drawers for additional clips. "Sir, Sulu's just outside San Mateo."

"Patch him through to me when he reports back," Jim calls over his shoulder, already on his way out. 

Thirty minutes later, Jim has put the Bay Area behind him. Operating on the memory of Spock's fondness for water, he's taken the Bayshore freeway, and fortunately for him the Mission RS he's riding is going too fast for him to second-guess his decision. 

Scotty is not so easily silenced.

The comm inside Jim's helmet clicks on, and Scotty's voice fills his ears. "Got him, sir: Spock's in Santa Cruz." 

"CIA?" Jim prompts, forgoing unnecessary questions such as, _what the hell is Spock doing in Santa Cruz?_

"On MacArthur Freeway, in traffic. They may or may not be under the impression that he's en route to L.A."

"Is he on the line?" Chekov says in the background, and a strong ocean wind forces Jim to tune out while the two scuffled over the phone. It seems the analyst wins in the end, because he begins yelling into the microphone. "Captain, I believe I have found a connection! London, 92, Keats assassinated Croatian diplomat Sarek, Spock's father. He is most known for his role in forming International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, tasked with prosecuting violations of international humanitarian rights during Yugoslav Wars. This I believe could explains Marcus's interest in Spock, however I cannot understand why. Sarek was neutralized but his work was not, everything he had worked for was passed by the Council."

"You sly bastard," Jim mutters under his breath, laughing at himself. How obvious, how _simple._ "Great work, gentlemen! Scotty, buy me time and get me Spock's exact location. Chekov?" 

"Yes, sir?"

"Dig up what you can on Sarek's murder - I want every detail, understood?"

"Yes, sir," Chekov confirms immediately. 

"Pull the plug."

✠

Scotty's coordinates lead him to the Walton Lighthouse in SC Small Craft Harbor. Joggers and dog-walkers alike are enjoying their evening, blissfully unaware of the disgraced intelligence operative hiding in plain sight. 

Jim comes to stand beside him by the railing, leaning forward and mirroring Spock's thoughtful watch over the Pacific. 

"You followed me, Captain," says Spock, clearly unsurprised by this turn of events. "I am shocked."

Jim snorts, shaking his head to himself. "Sure you are."

"You did tell me to go to hell, sir."

"That I did," Jim concurs, although neither man seems bothered. "Are you going to be this difficult every time we have a fight?" 

Spock straightens and turns to face Jim. If he's surprised to see Jim smiling back at him, he doesn't show it. "Will you accept my apology, Captain?" says Spock, earnest concern in his eyes. "I regret the physical and emotional repercussions my actions had for you. As my partner you did not deserve it."

"Forget it, Spock," says Jim, clapping him on the shoulder. "But if it makes you feel better, I accept your apology."

Spock continues watching him, unblinking. "Yesterday you would not listen to me."

"Hey, even geniuses need a little time sometimes," Jim grins, returning his gaze to the ocean. "I figured it out, you know. Why you needed Keats."

"You have," says Spock, offering a prompt rather than a question. He, too, turns his attention back to the water, comforted and at peace to stand side by side again. 

"You believe your father may still be alive," says Jim quietly. "You need Keats to help you find him."

"I am not yet certain that he is alive," says Spock, correcting Jim's inaccuracy without spite. "However, I believe Keats could offer insight into the circumstances of his disappearance."

"I believe your father is alive," says Jim, equally calm. "Trust me on this."

"Will you trust me, and allow me to question Keats?" 

"Implicitly," says Jim without hesitation. "Give him time to heal, and I will give you time to talk."

"I can accept those terms," Spock answers, nodding to himself. They fall back into a comfortable silence, indulging in the sound of the ocean, seagulls, and the steady footfalls of passing joggers. 

"What is it about you and water, Spock?" Jim asks after some time, lowering his voice in reverence to the question. 

"It is life," Spock answers simply. "It carries one's mind into recesses of knowledge otherwise impenetrable."

"Can't argue with that," Jim grins and pushes away from the railing. "Come on, it's time to go."

Spock glances at him over his shoulder before following suit, joining Jim's trek back to their parked vehicles. "I feel there is something you have not told me yet, Captain."

"Oh, right," says Jim, as if he recalling a forgotten grocery list. "You are currently wanted by the CIA. Marcus, to be specific."

Spock comes to an immediate halt, head tipped to the right as was his preferred expression of confusion. "Why me?"

"I think Marcus wants the same thing you want," Jim shrugs, only having a half-baked theory to offer in return. "But she can't get useful answers out of Keats without useful questions. Most likely, that is where you come in."

"She is an intelligent, capable, and committed woman," Spock says after some consideration. "I am touched."

"I know! I was thinking we could send her a muffin basket," Jim answers gleefully, a bright grin on his face. "You think she'd like that?"

"I believe her preference for baked confections has consistently been for those containing blueberries, sir."

"Blueberry muffins it is," Jim straddles his bike and watches Spock get into his Prius. "Spock, 744 Church Street. You think you can follow me?"

"I see your lack of clarity still persists. Are you speaking metaphorically or literally, sir?"

"I missed you, too, Spock!" Jim calls over the roar of his engine, snapping his visor down and taking off into the sunset. 

✠

In retrospect, the lack of green lights and general traffic control mediation should have been a hint. Spock even beats him back to the condo, adding insult to injury.

Sulu greets them at the door, and even from the door Jim finds the condo suspiciously devoid of his cursing engineer and the steady march of his analyst. 

"Bones, how is he?" Jim pushes past Sulu and makes a beeline for the master bedroom, "Where is Chapel?" 

Sulu doesn't answer, and he doesn't move. His glare is fixed on Spock, every muscle thrumming with the desperate itch to make the man suffer, to feel the crunch of his bones under his knuckles. 

"You turned your back on him," Sulu says instead, making every effort to keep his voice low. "You left him to die, to bleed out in the alley like an animal. Do not be mistaken, Spock: you are not forgiven. Not here, not ever."

"Duly noted, Mr. Sulu," says Spock, bowing his head incrementally. "Will you allow me to pass?"

Sulu snarls despite his effort, a vicious flash of teeth before he can force his mouth back into a firm line. Eventually he steps aside to let Spock enter the corridor. 

Together they follow Jim's trajectory for McCoy's bedroom, but Spock pauses by the stairs, arrested by a familiar voice drifting down the corridor. 

"This is not a charity organization or a goddamn animal shelter, Kirk," Uhura snaps at something that had been said, livid. "I said _arrest him_ , who the hell authorized you to adopt him?"

"You did not see what I saw," Jim answers, firm and undeterred. "He is smart, sir, sharp as nails. It would only be to our benefit and to your credit." 

"Flattery won't get you shit, Kirk," she growls. "This is why you have Sulu. At least he has the wherewithal to be suspicious of Keats."

"Sir, with all due respect, those cases are incomplete and and suspicions at best, you cannot pass judgement on him just--"

"Oh, and you're basing it on what, four days of strategic flirting?" says Uhura, "He's playing you! He's done it his whole life; what happened to your instinct, Kirk?" 

"I am basing my judgement on four days of extended exposure, during which time he was aware of my identity and my mission and could effortlessly have eliminated me. He chose not to do so. He saved us by going out of his way to warn us of Keats's attack, an attack which neither Spock or I was cognizant of at the time. More importantly, during the attack he chose to fight Keats instead of leaving her for me when he could have escaped. He did that knowing that it would have cost me my life, could have cost him his, and more certainly could cost him his freedom now."

To that, Uhura seems to have no response. 

At the foot of the stairs Spock and Sulu share a look in the uncomfortable silence, and surprisingly they reach the same decision. Neither man moves.

"And you want me to keep a nurse on retainer to monitor your allergies?" says Uhura eventually, her voice frustrated but relatively subdued. Jim was gaining ground. "You have an excellent medical plan. Can you give me one good reason to in any way endanger the life of a perfectly competent professional?"

"Because six times out of ten, we are nowhere near a hospital," Jim answers hotly, although his temper clearly remains under control. "Like many other nurses she is perfectly competent, but Nurse Chapel has been an asset to my team. She is reliable under pressure, and she has my confidence."

"Your next assignment is in D.C., Kirk, not back-water Mississippi, " Uhura grinds out. 

"With all due respect, sir, we will begin in D.C.," says Jim, unyielding. "Give me my team, or find someone else to do it. But you know, good luck getting Keats to talk without me."

"Blackmail, that's original," she sighs, unimpressed at best. "You expect me to put together a team including an international criminal, a nurse, and the man who abandoned you in a fire-fight. Am I understanding this correctly?"

"No, sir. I am asking you to give me a team that I can trust."

Uhura regards him in silence for a longer time. "Spock, Sulu, get in here," she finally calls. "You might as well be here for this."

Spock responds first, climbing the stairs two at a time with Sulu hot on his heels. Once in the room, they realize Scotty and Chekov had been there all along, one looking more uncomfortable and anxious than the other. 

"I do not have the authority or the funding from the Agency to give you this team, Kirk. However. The World Security Council have proposed a plan to put together a team of counter-intelligence operatives, tasked specifically to investigate threats of a highly sensitive nature."

Jim swallows back his grin, and instead prompts her to continue, "But?"

"You will not have the back-up or support provided by the Agency. This enterprise is completely self-contained, and should you be captured, killed, or discovered, you will only have your team to rely on."

His Kirk smirk is slapped off his face in one fell swoop, and the unequivocal acceptance that had been waiting to fall from Jim's lips evaporates into thin air. 

"Take some time," Uhura says then, her tone softened by empathy. She understood better than most what it meant to be responsible for those who depended on her leadership the most. "You achieved something extraordinary this week, and your team deserves a break. We will take it from here."

"Yes, sir." Jim responds promptly on cue. 

"You and Keats have been given direct orders to take two months of medical leave effective immediately. We will decide what to do with Keats after that, in the event that you do not accept this offer. The rest of your team will be re-distributed in the meantime."

Two months without fieldwork, without Chekov, Sulu, and Scott? Jim glanced past Uhura's shoulder at Spock, but his former partner was looking elsewhere. If Jim hadn't been concerned by what the Agency would do to him, he might have snickered at his pining ex partner. Instead, he deliberately abstains from responding to Uhura's orders, saving himself a repeat encounter with her left hook.

Uhura gathers her papers, and steps out from around the desk. On her way out she pauses by Jim, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. "You did good, Jim. Be proud of your team. Pike would be."

He looks up at her at the mention of his name, and immediately bring his hand up to give her hand a squeeze in return. Something fierce and hot swells in his chest, because no, Pike wouldn't be proud of him for letting her move his men under the command of other agents and risking their lives in ways that Jim could not control. 

He sets his jaw against all the things he needs her to understand - the overwhelming need to protect them, to make them proud of him in return. The sudden desire to shake up the world and show the high ranking assholes rotting behind their desks what his team could accomplish if they would just back the fuck off. 

But he's their leader, and he's the one they trust not to get them killed, or worse, ruin their careers. So he grits his teeth, digs his heels in, and nods again, parroting Uhura's praise back to her. "We did good." 

Satisfied, Uhura removes his hand from her and exits the room. Jim stands rooted to the spot, but looks at the team gathered around him, regarding each man in turn. 

"If you ask, I will hurt you," Sulu warns after an extended silence. "You're not doing this alone."

"Aye," Scotty seconds, getting to his feet. "I'm not missing out on this either. Sir."

Chekov stands up beside Scotty, too, and simply says, "We are not going anywhere, Captain."

"Should there be a position in your team for me, I will accept it," says Spock simply. Beside him, Sulu bristles but remains silent. 

With every offered allegiance, Jim grows a little stronger, stands up a little taller. By the end, he is thrumming with so much energy even Chekov with all of his logic expected to see him blast off into orbit.

"Gentlemen, it has been an honor. Take two weeks, rest. Should Uhura assign you elsewhere before I am reinstated, I only ask that you update me whenever possible, understood?"

They chorus their agreement, but none of them seem to understand what he means. Jim excuses himself, and makes to leave the room when Sulu calls after him.

"Jim, where are you going?"

"To complete the set!" Jim calls back over his shoulder, hurrying down the stairs and to McCoy's room. He can hear Chapel and Uhura conversing quietly in the kitchen, so he abandons any cause for formality and charges into the room like a bull with a mission. 

"Bones!" he cheers. "Guess what?"

"No," Bones mutters, not even bothering to open his eyes or lifting his head from the pillow. "Not interested, Jim."

"What do you mean, you're not interested?" Jim scowls, coming to stand beside the bed with his hands on his hips. "Look at me, Bones."

"No," Bones says again, stubbornly ignoring him. "It was a mistake, Jim. I've done this my whole life. I'm old, I'm done." 

"You sure as hell didn't look old or done two days ago," Jim counters. "I'm not going to accept a no if you can't look me in the eye."

"As if you'd accept rejection at all," Bones scoffs, brows creasing and climbing up his forehead even though his eyes remain shut. "It's not that easy, Jim."

"I know," says Jim, lowering his voice. "Bones, I know about Joanna."

McCoy's eyes suddenly snap open, staring at Jim in wide-eyed fear. 

"If I promise you that she and her family will remain safe," he soothes, trying to coax the man out of paralysis. "Will you reconsider?"

"Are you threatening her?" Bones growls, fisting the sheets beneath his palms in white-knuckle grips. "You do not want to blackmail me, kid."

"What? No! She is safe, Bones," says Jim, frowning as if he'd been grievously insulted. Threatening children? That's the bullshit Narada would pull, not those under the command of James T. Kirk. "Her safety was a priority after Keats was taken in."

"So," Bones tries again, his voice still rough around the edges. "What are you saying, Jim?"

"That you will have the resources to protect her as a part of my team," says Jim, grinning if only because it seemed to exasperate Bones further. "A team of six other people who will continue to protect her, should you ever be unable to do it yourself."

Bones groans deeply and falls back into his pillow. "Goddamnit, kid," he finally grouses. "Why don't you ever quit?"

"Only when I win," Jim admits, laughing at Bones's long-suffering eye roll. "So, what'll it be? Don't leave me hanging here, Bones."

"Don't look so goddamn pathetic," Bones mutters, but the frustration in his voice doesn't reach the hesitant interest Jim sees in his eyes. "Fine, alright. I'm in. Satisfied?"

"No, not yet. But there will be time for that later," Jim promises, although he's not sure yet to whom. "You think Chapel will come onboard?"

"She already has, I think," says Bones, glancing toward the kitchen. "She told Nyota as much." 

"Then I guess you'll be the first to hear it," says Jim, lowering his voice. "Hey Bones, want to hear a secret?"

"Not really," Bones drawls. "But you're gonna tell me anyway."

Jim grins wide, a delighted laugh percolating under his skin with such rare energy it might have needed a Surgeon General's warning. It was a remarkable sight, a dawn rising in human form, and it occurrs to Bones that this was a glimpse of the Captain who was once left broken in an alley nearly a year ago. 

"Of course I will," Jim beams, resting his hip against the side of the bed. "So you wanna hear it or not?"

"Yeah?" 

"Welcome to the Enterprise."


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative title: A Second Welcome. 
> 
> Because I couldn't resist. I might have a problem.

"You killed Mhairi!" Scotty cries even as Jim put the phone to his ear. There was a catch in his hoarse voice, which meant this was either a drunk accusation or heartbroken outrage. "Why'd you do it? Was it her love for Magnus?"

Had he not been James T. Kirk, he would have succumbed to dread on the spot. But fortunately for him he is a man of infinite courage, a man whose chosen profession requires him to infiltrate international crime syndicates and hunt down the filthiest dregs of society on a regular basis. 

And when he is not busy saving the world, he secretly reworks his experiences into novellas, most often in the form of murder mysteries and crime thrillers. But for the past eight weeks, Jim has been holed up in the condo under mandatory medical leave, during which time he has taken to penning some downright raunchy Scottish medieval romance novels. His publishers had been confused, but pleased - housewives were gobbling the online series up faster than Jim could write them.

But Scotty doesn't need to know that. After all, there was a reason Jim published under a pen name. So he keeps his cool and he tries to subdue his engineer into rational, complete sentences. Regrettably, the grieving man only spirals further out of control. 

"Scotty! Man, you've got the wrong guy here, okay?" Jim finally has to yell to be heard over Scotty's diatribe. "I don't know what you are talking about. And for the record, I haven't been anywhere near a Magnus since 09." 

"Drop the act, Kirk! Ain't a soul at headquarters that don't know you're MacKay Keats, bodice ripper extraordinaire," Scotty sighs, the familiar sound of glasses being poured filling the background. "Cheeky name that is my friend, who'd you think it would fool? Everyone knows."

"Everyone?" says Jim after a longer pause. "Could you be more specific, Mr. Scott."

" _Seducing a Highlander_ is the unofficial companion piece to the orientation manual," Scotty drawls, taking an audible drink. "Listen, if you want to keep writing this Ode to Magnus's legendary hands so be it, but could you please stop murdering every woman who loves him? Scotsmen aren't so cruel mate, I think you're confusing us with the English."

"I will take your critique under advisement," Jim says quietly, his voice pitched low with the sudden realization of just how silent the condo had become. Bones had been taking the day's frustration out on some unsuspecting sourdough, but now it seemed even the clock was too uncomfortable to tick. 

How much had his side of the conversation revealed? 

Lost in his own mission, Scotty interprets the change in Jim's tone to mean something else entirely. "For goodness sake man! Is that what you're doing now? Killing off the Queen?"

"What Queen? There is no Queen," Jim blinks in confusion and can't help sounding defensive, but it doesn't take long for the situation to dawn on him. "You hacked my computer? Again! My _personal_ computer?" 

"Nay, didn't have to," says Scotty, snickering cheerfully to himself. "The kid did it, he was first to finish _Kilts and Plunder_. I wouldn't upset him anymore if I were you, sir, that wee numpty's dangerous when he means to be."

"He hacked my computer and accessed my draft," Jim parrots back, struggling to keep his voice and breathing neutral. He was not yet sure whether to be impressed or furious. "And he sent _you_ a copy?"

"To everyone in the department," Scotty grins, feeling suitably recompensed. But when Jim did not respond, he had the presence of mind to be concerned. "Sir?"

Bones was looming in the open doorway to Jim's little office, arms crossed over his chest. Color was slowly creeping up his neck and into his hairline, like an obscene status bar gauging his joint frustration and mortification. 

Without a word, Jim knew his game was up. 

The phone in his hand sputters and dies, drawing the immediate attention of both men. In place of Scotty's voice there is now a suspicious white noise humming through the phone, and Jim switches it to speaker in case it meant anything to Bones. Crackling static and broken words grate their ears until finally a single word can be deciphered. 

"Captain?" 

"The kid," Bones whispers, quickly coming to stand beside Jim. Both of them squint at the phone, holding it between them as they tried to hear what he might be saying. 

"Is that English?" Jim frowns, resisting the urge to shake the phone to clear the static out. "Can you make anything out?"

"Captain," Chekov says again, and if Jim didn't know any better he would swear the kid was wheezing. "51 30 07 39."

"London," Bones interprets automatically. Jim stares at him. "What?"

"Damn," Jim begins, but another crackle of the phone interrupts them. 

"Yolcaut - visual," Chekov says repeatedly over the static, "Yellow, code yellow."

"Status?" Jim demands, but Bones snatches the phone out of his hand. 

"Yolcaut?" he yells into the phone. "You got visual on Yolcaut?"

"Negative," says Chekov, and this time the catch in his voice is clear. "Lost visual."

"Report status," Jim repeats, glaring after Bones and making a grab for the phone. But even as Bones gives it up willingly, the static overtakes Chekov's voice, and only one repeated warning _yellow_ makes it across before the connection is dead. 

"Suit up," Jim orders, dropping the phone on the couch and taking off, channeling his anger into strategy. From somewhere in the bookcase he unearths a small duffle, carrying it around the condo and throwing the essentials in with little finesse: his three Sig Sauers, communicator, flare, tablet, extra clips, assorted grenades. He slips his shoulder holster on over his button-up and trots down the stairs just over a minute later to find Bones standing precisely where he had left him, unarmed and still wearing those decade old jeans he wandered the house in. All he had bothered to fetch were a pair of running shoes which he hadn't even laced up. 

"Bones, get ready. We won't have these things in London, grab what you need." Jim throws the duffle on the couch, grabbing for his jacket. 

"I'm ready," Bones shrugs, tapping his head. "Got everything I need here."

Jim's expression quirks, but his hands never stop working. He unholsters the Walther PPK he'd been wearing and holds it out for Bones. "Take it."

"I don't do guns, Jim," says Bones with a faint grimace, almost leaning away from the offending weapon. 

"And I don't take unarmed men into a potentially hostile mission," Jim insists, grabbing Bones's hand and pressing the gun into it. "You don't have to like it, Bones, but you might need it." 

Bones doesn't take the weapon willingly, but Jim holds position like a mule, refusing to release the gun until Bones had a firm grip on it. 

"Yolcaut doesn't do fire-fights, Jim," Bones whispers, but he finally relents and takes the weapon. "He's too cerebral for barbaric shit like this."

"Who is he?" Jim asks, waiting to see Bones clip the holstered PPK to his belt before stepping out of his personal space. 

"Not someone I'd care to meet again," says Bones, reluctant to elaborate. 

Jim doesn't press him further; he had more important things to worry about. He shoulders the duffle, throws his jacket on, and leads the way to the car while sending a quick message to the rest of the team: _wheels up in 20_. 

Satisfied, he chucks the phone into the backseat and gets in behind the wheel. "Can you fly, Bones?"

"What?" Bones snaps back, unusually unraveled by Jim's question. 

"Do you prefer to be the pilot or the passenger?" Jim repeats, though something about that smirk on his face makes Bones want to smack him upside the head. 

When Bones just stands by the passenger seat without getting in, Jim sighs and tries again. "It's a serious question, Bones: do you prefer fighter jets or business planes?"

"Hate them all," Bones grunts as he relents and drops into the passenger seat of the car, acutely aware of what would be in his near future. "Fair warning, I might throw up on you." 

"You'll owe me new shoes," Jim grins, mildly distracted in his high-speed slalom through traffic. From the back seat they hear the phone vibrate to four separate messages, confirmations of orders received. 

"Welcome back to active duty, Bones."


End file.
